Billboards and television advertising will encourage citizens to buy a lottery ticket. Like Barbee, Brooks argues that the lottery creates compulsive gamblers, that it encourages the poor, those least able to waste their money, to buy tickets. It destroys families. There is a high percentage of people in prison for gambling-related crimes. The gambling industry defends the lottery as recreation.
Gamblers feel they have some skill but lottery is pure chance, says the lobbyist.
But people do enjoy it and a lot of good things come from it. There is no reasonable argument for the state sponsoring a lottery. The answer is simple. The state does not promote the use of alcohol. It controls its use and sale.