A recent review of lottery documents by the Virginian Pilot in Norfolk shows that per capita spending on lottery tickets is highest where income is lowest. Norfolk, for example, has three lottery outlets per square mile. Virginia Beach, a wealthier community, has one outlet per square mile. A few poor individuals might get lucky, but generally speaking, the state government is taking money out of poor communities and passing it around. To do so is not prudent public policy, and the scheme is morally bankrupt.
Nobody makes poor people play, of course.
But our culture is infected with a get rich quick mania. People are scurrying around looking for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Poor people want to get instantly rich, too, and Virginia's government makes a person with a dollar or two think it's possible. The Apache way of life, by the way, was doomed in 1848 by the discovery of gold in California. Americans who headed west during the Gold Rush wanted safe passage, and so Army cavalry was assigned to get the Indians out of the way.