Impromptu!

I apologize for the long argument. My position is this: the government should not endorse national or state lotteries, which are run by many state governments for extra revenue. FACTS About one-third of lottery winners go bankrupt, while debt is a general problem for all lottery winners. [1] [8] The full value of money won by lottery winners is only given if the winner accepts a series of annual payments, where inflation lowers the value of the prize. The only other option is to accept a very reduced sum. Taxes on the prize reduce the amount won further. [1] The poor make up the vast majority (80%) of lottery players--a household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, about 9 percent of all its income. [1] [4] A sampling of the odds from the Powerball which supports the revenues of 21 states: Only one in 195,249,054 wins the grand prize. The odds remain terrible all the way down to the lowest prize available--one would have to pay 62 times to win $3, statistically. [2] States earned about $115 in revenue from Powerball. [3] When lottery revenue is used to fund specific programs, the programs do not actually receive more money and only have their funding replaced. In the long run, they receive less funding. [3] Lottery revenue, in addition to funding specific programs, is used to lower how much homeowners have to pay in property taxes--a "voluntary tax". [1] MISLEADING The allure of the lottery is a false promise. I remind my audience of the extremely low odds of winning, yet the same company which had those odds proclaims: "There were no jackpot winners Saturday, but 724,959 players across the nation won more than $6.9 million in prizes in America's Game. " Statements like these are common but are incredibly misleading--on average all of those 724,959 people won only $9--nine dollars! --each. This is a form of state revenue which relies on misleading people. WINNERS LOSE It seems nobody comes out of this worse than the winners themselves. It's been shown that people are simply very bad at dealing with suddenly becoming wealthy. One-third of them file for bankruptcy in five years. Most suffer from social anomie, meaning they suddenly stop thinking about social norms and rules and end up destroying their lives legally and emotionally. Winners attest to being constantly harassed for money by everyone from family members to strangers expecting them to pay their bills. Another form of harassment is in frivolous lawsuits intended to get out-of-court settlements--the same kind of lawsuits that big corporations often get, except that corporations have regular income and lottery winners only think they do. Most winners end up in a great deal of debt even if they avoid the worst of the riches to ruin story. POINTLESS The net gain isn't much to brag about. As mentioned in the facts above, 9% of the income of those with income under $13,000 is lost to the lottery. This group makes up the vast majority of lottery income, and generally states get about a third of a lottery's profit. Meaning, a household making $10,000 has lost $900 and the state gets about $300 (if we're going to be very careful and not overstate anything, which I intend to do). Forgetting sales tax, that means along with $1000 in income tax the state gets $1300 out of this extremely poor tax bracket. If the state is truly desperate enough to squeeze money out of the nation's poorest, however, an increase of 5% in the amount this person is taxed would—with the lottery out of the picture—give the state the same $1500 total without the impoverished losing that extra $400 that went to private industry. The state has more money, the household has more money, and there is no risk of an innocent person suffering from any terrible effects. And as mentioned in the facts, the revenue gained by the lottery system is used as an easy solution and could be considered worth less than conventionally gained revenue. This is of course, despite the size of the paragraph (correction: I've broken this down, but wasn't sure how else to refer to it all. .. just visualize it as a big scary paragraph, and silently thank me) a big simplification. My point is illustrated, however--the government makes less with this system. UNFAIR Most people recognize that even if lottery prizes didn't cause all sorts of problems, the winners don't deserve to be multi-millionaires simply for getting lucky. This isn't fair. Some might argue that risk and reward is simply part of capitalism, however a government should encourage citizens to work hard. A government should not endorse and even run something which perpetuates a mentality that one doesn't have to work hard to get rich. CONCLUSION The bottom line is, nobody wins but the lottery companies. As there is no reason outside of political posturing to use lotteries for state revenue, and many compelling reasons to end the practice altogether, the only clear answer is that the state has no business in the lottery business. SOURCES 1) . http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com... 2) . http://www.powerball.com... 3) . http://abcnews.go.com... 4) . http://scienceblogs.com... 5) . http://www.karemar.com... 6) . https://docs.google.com... 7) . https://docs.google.com... 8) . http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...