WSJ: Gambling for Their Lives- UN turns to scratch-card lotteries

[Rose Siding]

The U.N., scraping for disaster-response funds, turns to scratch-card lotteries to try to raise money for famine relief and other aid for such places as strife-torn Darfur and drought-stricken Kenya.

The U.N. hopes, for a start, to convince France, Spain and Brazil to issue special cards as part of their national lotteries, with the proceeds going to the World Food Program and UNICEF. “We’re the U.N. — we can’t operate a lottery,” said Cecile Sportis, director of the WFP office in Paris. “So we need to find governments willing to operate the lottery for us.”

Once a country agrees, Sportis said it will take another year to get its U.N. lottery up and running. She calculated that if 20 of the richest countries — including the U.S. — participated, the U.N.’s take could reach $400 million to $600 million annually. The European Parliament has already given the plan preliminary support.

The U.N., though, seems a bit conflicted about mixing gambling and charity. On the one hand U.N. officials feel like they can’t limit the lottery to rich countries; if poor countries want to sell scratch-cards to their citizens, too, the U.N. won’t object. On the other hand, the U.N. doesn’t want to be seen as encouraging gambling addiction. “The idea is not to push people to play too much, so we’ll try not to have too many big awards,” said Sportis.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/05/02/gambling-for-their-lives/