I still think the question is, you know, do we want our government to just simply be a kind of like a black computer box. Or do we want our public officials to think about what is good for the society and to encourage people to go beyond their initial instincts and think more deeply about what their obligations are. I prefer very much that kind of model. If gambling is that popular, then clearly it's responsive to something, but there are a whole lot of other options and a whole lot of other issues that we ought to be discussing that we've never essentially discussed as this thing has mushroomed throughout the society. There's nothing unusual or immoral about lotteries.
Lotteries are a form of gambling.
We gamble when we play the stock market, futures markets, options markets. We gamble when we take a new job or when we decide what school to go to. This is simply another form of gambling that some people with a relatively elitist outlook have decided they don't like. For every dollar that is spent the government is giving back people who buy tickets 55 cents. The market could do a much better job and give us better odds.