University study proves Maine’s lottery amounts to a multi-million-dollar tax on the poor

[n2doc]

WAITE, Maine — Wayne Seidl remembers the day a woman showed up at his shop and plunked her paycheck on the counter. She asked him to cash it in exchange for lottery tickets. It had been a hard week, she said.

Seidl, co-owner of the Waite General Store in northeastern Washington County, recalled the woman had three, maybe four, kids at home. He told her he felt the money would be better spent on food or clothes for her children. He refused to sell her the tickets. But he doubts it made much of a difference.

“If they don’t buy them here, they’ll go somewhere else,” he said.

Seidl, a former town selectman in Waite, pop. 101, has no shortage of such stories. Another frequent customer, he said, makes a 90-mile daily trip from Calais to Waite to Houlton, buying $25 scratch tickets at every stop along the way. One man routinely spends $200 a day on the lottery. Other regular buyers are on food stamps, unemployed or on welfare, he said.

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http://pinetreewatchdog.org/university-study-proves-maines-lottery-amounts-to-a-multi-million-dollar-tax-on-the-poor/

[DetlefK]

1. For every lottery-winner, there are thousands/millions of lottery-losers.

There's a well-known psychological flaw in humans: We tend to forget/overlook the many failures and focus too much on the few successes.

[Snow Leopard]

2. Chicken/egg?

Maybe she is poor because of bad decisions? People do have to take some responsibility for their choices. Glad the vendor refused to sell to her though.

[starroute]

6. Then how do you explain all the other poor people?

Lotteries are not the cause of poverty. Gambling or drugs or any other short-term high is a way people cope with being in an intolerable situation that they have no ability to escape from.

Yes, it would be better if the woman spent her paycheck on food for her kids instead of lottery tickets. But doing that wouldn't get her out of poverty -- and suggesting it could is simply victim-blaming.

[DirkGently]

9. Lotteries exacerbate and exploit poverty.

They function as a tax on the poor.

It's not necessary for them to be the cause of poverty for lotteries to be a bad idea.

[starroute]

12. Yes and no

They do act as a tax on the poor -- just like excessive traffic fines and court fees. And that is unconscionable.

But I'm old enough to remember that when lotteries were enacted, it was partly to displace the numbers racket -- which not only taxed the poor but fed the proceeds into the pockets of organized crime.

Of course, I see from Wikipedia that state lotteries typically claim 50% of the take, where the illegal rackets only took 20-40% -- plus which, state lottery proceeds are taxable. So the poor are getting ripped by the government far worse than they ever were by the Mafia.

Also, playing the numbers was personal and neighborhood-based. I suspect it's the very impersonality of handing over money at the counter in a transaction with a remote government entity that encourages people to buy whole handfuls of tickets at once.

So yeah, lotteries are a bad idea. But not for the obvious reasons.

[GeorgeGist]

16. Even more likely, people decided that poor people weren't worth educating ...

or paying a living wage.

[Lizzie Poppet]

3. Lotteries are taxes on people who are bad at math.

It's just that if you're wealthy and bad at math, it's no big deal. For everyone else, a gambling addiction, in whatever form, can be devastating.

[Nye Bevan]

4. It's always saddening to see an obviously poor person buying a pile of scratch-off lottery tickets.

And nauseatingly hypocritical that states sanctimoniously ban gambling because they want to keep the business and the profit to themselves.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Escpecially What's Written Here?

My wife and i were at the store Friday. I didn't even know $25 and $30 per play instant game cards existed until i saw those in the machine on Friday.

The $25 tickets mentioned in this story are the second time in 3 days i've now heard about these.

That's an awful lot to drop in one shot.

[closeupready]

5. The story as described is sad, but I'm not going to stop buying Lotto tickets

when the jackpot gets big, if that's the point here.

A little 'flutter' every now and then is fun, no question about it. And on the rare occasion when you win something, it's even more fun - like icing on the cake. As long as you keep within a budgeted amount.

The characterization of a voluntary game of chance as a 'tax' is completely wrong. Plenty of poor people who don't gamble - so how can a state lottery be a tax, since taxes are unavoidable?

[GeorgeGist]

17. Pssst ...

rich people avoid taxes all the time.

Lotteries are for suckers.

[A Round Tuit]

7. So, let me make sure I understand this...

There is someone that will initiate paperwork, warrants, reports, files, notices of delinquencies, notice of seizure, etc, etc, if I don't plunk down 5 bucks to play the lottery?
Would that same person be the one that does the same things if I refuse/fail to pay my property tax or submit the sales tax on my purchases or pay tax due notices after doing my tax returns?
Whether I agree with a tax or not does not matter.
I must pay the tax...I have no choice, unless of course, I work through my representatives and gain the support of them and a majority of the affected and we succeed in getting the tax stopped, modified, done away with, etc.
But the lottery?
No one has ever forcibly reached into my pocket (nor the pocket of anyone else) and forcibly removed any amount whatsoever to put down on a lottery ticket.
No one. Ever. No where.
Taxes, whether you agree with the particular tax or not, is forced upon you. It is not discretionary.
Yes, one may take advantage of the vagaries written into the tax code/rules and lessen or even eliminate the tax on their personal situation, but the requirement to act upon the tax remains. You either pay it, or you fight it and pay less or none, but you still have to respond to the tax authority.
Lottery is a choice. Yes, the pie-in-the-sky advertising and the constant bombardment of testimony from the occasional winner may induce some with less will to resist than others, but it is still an individual choice and act to reach into one's wallet and produce whatever amount of money one wishes to put down on a lottery ticket.
Perhaps not the best choice for some persons, but a choice, nevertheless.
Calling it a "Tax on the poor", is not correct.
Making a family of 4, with minimum wage income, pay tax on food that is purchased for personal consumption...THAT is a tax on the poor.
I have more examples, but I'll not waste the space, as I'm sure everyone has an example of such taxation that they can come up with.

[closeupready]

11. I completely agree.

[mmonk]

10. Yes indeed.

I usually call it an idiot tax but that is cruel by my standards. The poor will waste their meager pay checks on a pipe dream just because the rich and powerful don't want to contribute a dime to society.

[exboyfil]

13. I make a pretty good income as a mid-level engineer

but I do worry sometimes about the $2/week I put in the office pool lottery. I mainly do it as part of bonding with my coworkers. My parents gambled frequently growing up, but I never got the same rush from it that my parents did. I guess I know the odds too well.

I would like to see, if a lottery exists, an ethical advertising program around it. For folks like my parents it was a form of entertainment and probably only a small problem. For many though participation has a big impact on their livelihood.

[Snobblevitch]

14. Spending money on lottery tickets

affects poor people more than others of course, but it is a mistake to believe that poor people spend more on lottery tickets than do people higher incomes.

[n2doc]

15. Got any proof of that assertion?

Because if you had read the article it contradicts that, with data.

A lot of libertarian types here on DU today, it seems.

[Snobblevitch]

19. By definition. They're poor.

They don't have the money to be the major source of lottery revenues. What they do spend negatively affects them more than it does those with the means to play the lottery. It's supposd to be entertainment.

[n2doc]

20. You didn't answer my question. Figures. n/t

[jwirr]

18. Or that all poor people use their whole paycheck for gambling.

I tell people that if God wants them to win the lottery He can do it with one ticket. They do not have to buy them all.