The Case For State Lotteries

-{I didn’t get the Opposite Day post I had intended to write done. However, a while back on Hit Coffee I wrote a point-counterpoint from the perspective of two fictitious characters from my writing. One favors state-run lotteries. The other opposed it. So for Opposite Day, I am going to reproduce the one that I disagreed with. BC is a reference to the author of the point that this is a counterpoint to. I was going to go with Truman Williams for my Opposite Day post, but since this is written from the point of view of a character, it’s RK. So consider this a sorta OD post. The opposing viewpoint is available at the above link.}-

It’s a fact of life that very, very few of us will grow up to be rich. The more you redistribute income, the more you’re preventing people from becoming wealthy in the first place. The less you redistribute income, you’re supporting a status quo in which the wealthy get wealthier while the rest of us get by. Sure, there are people that find the magic formula to become the new rich, but that is exceedingly rare. It requires risks that few want to take. It requires smarts that few have. So you have those that already have money – and lots of it. You have those that have the smarts and gumption to risk it all to become rich. But that’s not most people. Most people just want enough money to get by and a savings to retire on. That’s hard enough. Making millions? That’s for other people. It may be a depressing thought, but it’s true.

Lotteries circumvent that. They provide a way for anybody with a dollar in their pocket to become wealthy. Almost none of them will, of course. The numbers are out there for everyone to see. And even the innumerate among us know that the odds are longer than we can possibly imagine. But as they say, you can’t win if you don’t play. And if you can’t win, you can’t dream of becoming a millionaire. When you buy a lottery ticket, you’re buying more the long odds at a jackpot. You’re buying a ticket to dream.

This is particularly true when it comes to the working class and below. Not only will these people never be wealthy, but they will probably never be comfortable. They’ll likely never have a comfortable retirement. They’ll probably always be living from one paycheck to the next. The lottery doesn’t change this. This is the way of the world. But the lottery provides them the ability to imagine a different life. A better one. We’re talking about a lot of people who don’t have anything to look forward to. Even if it’s almost entirely illusory (and even if winners lives don’t actually improve), the lottery is a little, quiet voice that says “it could happen to you.” It’s a reason to get up in the morning. It’s a form of entertainment. We spent all kinds of money watching people throw balls of various sizes and shapes around. That’s a game we have no stake in. If our team wins, we don’t materially benefit. There is no material benefit at all, no matter what happens.

If you look at the lottery in this way, it’s no less counterproductive productive than paying $3 to drink a beer so that you can watch the game on the bigscreen or spending $50 a month for cable so you can watch a game on TV. Most members of society have their basic material needs met. Even the hard-luck folks who used to come to BC’s convenience store{1} most likely had a roof over their heads and were (statistically) more likely to be overweight than not eating enough. So what do you do with the rest of that money? There’s really no right answer. But the lottery is, itself, not really the wrong one. I remember reading a comic strip once that said “Leo forgot to buy his lottery ticket, so he decided to play the home version” and shows him burning a $1. But isn’t it worth something to have that ticket in your pocket, to turn on the TV and watch the news for the winning numbers, and for some portion of the day to imagine how life could be if you won? But almost nobody expects to win. It’s all part of a carnival roller coaster. It’s living.

And if we’re going to allow for this sort of thing, then why not have the state do it? The state may be no more responsible than private industry (something “my side”{2} has been saying for years). But it’s profits to the state that would otherwise go to someone else. And, though this argument doesn’t appeal all that much to me, if you’re concerned about gambling, it makes the state less likely to legalize it writ-large, because it would cut into the state’s profits by eliminating its monopoly. Allow people to drop their quarters in casinos, then they will will be devoting their money to the types of companies that pour money into studying which kind of scents make people more foolish with their money. They’ve even made slot machines so that you don’t have to pull a lever in there, all the quicker to part a fool with his money. Horse racing allows upward betting so that someone can keep doubling their bet to try to make back what they lost. A daily Powerball is drawn only once a day. Scratch-offs at least require you to put down all of your money up-front or get back in line. Both have tickets that are of a fixed amount, and neither are likely to draw as much from any individual person as the more open-ended gambling that goes on in casinos.

You can look at it, as BC does, as the state assisting people in their own harm. But, at least properly done, you can also look at it as allowing people the ability to dream of millions, while more providing them a way of doing so that is less addictive than many of the alternatives.

{1} A reference to the opposing article, wherein BC talks about his experiences working at a convenience store where people would cash their checks and turn around and (with the state’s assistance) spend their money counter-productively.

{2} RK is a registered Republican.