LITTLE ROCK — NO DOUBT you’ve heard the standard rejoinders to all arguments against the state’s running a numbers racket, aka the Arkansas Lottery:
If you don’t want to play the lottery, don’t play the lottery. Nobody’s holding a gun on you. If the state of Arkansas didn’t have a lottery, folks would just go to the boats in Louisiana. And it’s not like most lottery players are spending the rent money on lottery tickets. It’s just disposable income. There are a lot of well-off people who play the lottery. It’s just another form of entertainment.
Okay. Defenders of the lottery have a point or two in there somewhere. Folks probably would go down to Louisiana or over to Mississippi to gamble if they couldn’t gamble here, but not everybody who buys tickets for the big drawings-or their ugly little cousins, those scratch-off tickets-would strike out for the nearest state line if Arkansas didn’t have a lottery. We’ve seen folks scratching off those tickets at gas stations. Some of them don’t look like they have much gas money.
The other day, the not so hypothetical theory that the lottery preys on the poor was confirmed. Again. And by the folks who ought to know best: Those who run it.
It’s happened before: Those who manage the lottery have been honest about how it works. And whom it hurts most. A couple of years back, Big Ernie Passailaigue, who’s now happily the former director of the Arkansas Lottery, told folks that the scratch-off tickets were predatory. Wait. Make that “could be” considered predatory. Lottery directors have to know when to blur the truth.
And it happened again last week. There’s honor even among gambling promoters. Apparently ticket sales have fallen for the second month in a row. The numbers for July and August were down by millions. Normally, we’d say that would be good reason to celebrate. If ticket sales drop, that means fewer people have been pinning all their hopes on a lottery ticket.
When asked why ticket sales have dropped this summer, a spokesman for the lottery explained: “We can’t know how each player makes the decision, but the last two months have been marked with high gasoline prices and a heat wave that came close to or broke records, as well as a drought.”
The new(ish) director of the lottery,Bishop Woosley, said much the same just last month when he told the Lottery Commission that rising gas prices and electric bills could cut into ticket sales. So the lottery’s spokesman is just following the boss’ lead. Which is smart.
But . . . .
Let’s see if we understand what the people at the lottery are saying: Folks who would normally buy lottery tickets haven’t been able to this summer because they’re buying gasoline? Or paying the electric bill? Or the water bill? Or for some other necessity? That doesn’t sound like the kind of player who’d jet off to Atlantic City if the State of Arkansas didn’t offer a lottery. Or one who’d just eat out another time at his favorite restaurant-lobster bisque, please, and snow crabs for the table-if he didn’t throw a couple of twenties down at the local convenience store for lottery tickets.
The kind of person who can’t buy lottery tickets because he’s paying the light bill this month sounds very much like the kind of person who really shouldn’t be buying lottery tickets.
OF COURSE it’s all about the children. As usual. Because part of the money taken in by the lottery goes to fund college scholarships. But then, you have to ask, are those scholarships ever assured if they’re being paid for by folks who stop buying lottery tickets when the weather gets too hot or too cold, or when gasoline prices go up? And is it a good thing in general-an ethical, moral policy-to have the poor pay for the college education of middle-class kids? Where’s the justice, or sense, in that?
But this much is incontrovertible:
The lottery is popular.
The scholarships are popular.
That doesn’t make any of it right.
But it’s only right that we thank those at the lottery for coming clean about where the lottery’s money is coming from. Honesty will pop up in the most surprising places, even in those who make a nice living running a scam. Not that they’re the only ones responsible for putting this legalized swindle over. Lest we forget, We the People supported it overwhelmingly.
There’s no denying the widespread lure of easy money. And this month, once again, there was no denying where so much of the lottery’s money comes from: Literally poor suckers.
Editorial, Pages 78 on 09/16/2012