When a state implements a lottery, its average household spends 2.8 percent less on food eaten in the home and 5.8 percent less on mortgage, rent and other bills.
Notably, it doesn’t spend any less on other forms of gambling.
That comes from a comprehensive study of states that introduced lotteries by Melissa Kearney, an economics professor at the University of Maryland.
The point it illustrates is that when given the option of a lottery, people don’t shift funds they would have used at the casino. Rather they keep going to the casino and buy lottery tickets at the same time.
And a 2012 study by researchers at the University of Buffalo surveyed 5,000 Americans about the lottery and found that the poorest 20 percent of people played the lottery 61 percent of the time, significantly higher than the 42 percent to 43 percent of richer people who played.
The question all this research raises for Mississippi as it prepares to start a lottery is this: Are less food in homes and less bills paid for our poorest residents really things our state government needs to be encouraging right now? Don’t we have an epidemic already of hungry children and broke families?
Of course, the counter arguments can’t be ignored: No one makes anyone else play the lottery. It’s a choice people make to gamble their money away in hopes of a big payoff.
And, a majority of Mississippians clearly want a lottery. A 1992 referendum to amend the state constitution to remove a ban against lotteries passed with 53 percent of the vote. That level of support has no doubt increased since as society has generally become more accepting of gambling.
The legislature held off implementing a lottery for a quarter century thanks to two highly influential groups with very different reasons for opposing the lottery: casinos and the Baptist church. Casinos, of course, didn’t want another form of gambling competition, while the Baptist church, whose vast influence in Mississippi is universally known but has never been properly documented in my opinion, opposed it for moral reasons.
But this year, as a road and bridges crisis reached a level where something had to be done, the legislature relented and approved a lottery during a special session. It’s estimated it will bring in about $80 million in profit that will go toward roads and bridges for 10 years. Syndicated columnist Sid Salter, whose pro-lottery position you can read below, says it’s estimated it will take about a year to get the lottery up and running.
However, I don’t think it’s good public policy to fund infrastructure by dangling a rancid carrot in front of poor people, which will only make them poorer, and then say it’s their fault for deciding to play. Wouldn’t it be better for society as a whole to not encourage such vices? Yet we continue to legalize more and more things that destroy men’s souls and yet we wonder why our society’s morals continue to decline.
While the deed is now done, all that’s left is to try to educate people so they don’t waste their money on scratch-off tickets. Here’s one reason why: A 2012 Yale study found that “receipt of scratch lottery tickets as gifts during childhood or adolescence was associated with risky/problematic gambling” later in life.” Might I suggest a savings bond instead?
Contact Editor and Publisher Charlie Smith at (601) 736-2611.
