We BEEN saying this shit for decades!!!
apnews.com
WARREN, Mich. (AP) — While the growing expansion of casinos and state-sanctioned sports betting steal the spotlight, state lotteries have nearly doubled in size over the past two decades, driving a multibillion-dollar wealth transfer from low-income U.S. communities to powerful multinational companies.
A nationwide investigation of state lotteries by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland found that lottery retailers are disproportionately clustered in lower-income communities in nearly every state. The investigation’s analysis of cellphone location data shows that the people who patronize those stores come from the same kinds of communities.
Once rare, lotteries now operate in all but five U.S. states. Driven by more than a half-billion dollars in annual ad spending, lottery ticket sales have grown from $47 billion to $82 billion since 2005, according to La Fleur’s 2022 World Lottery Almanac. In 10 states, lotteries generate more revenue than corporate income taxes.
The investigation also found that a key promise of lotteries across the country — that they support education — doesn’t hold up. Instead, lotteries often compound inequities by disproportionately benefiting college students and wealthier school districts far from the neighborhoods where most tickets are sold.
“Poor people are collateral damage to a cause of raising money for what the legislators feel is good purposes … public safety, local schools,” said Gregory W. Sullivan, a former Massachusetts inspector general and now research director for a free-market think tank in Boston.
The multibillion-dollar wealth transfer starts in places like Warren, Michigan, where Ashley Standifer buys tickets in one of the state’s poorest neighborhoods.
On a snowy April day, Standifer stopped by the Korner Party Store in this Detroit suburb, its largest sign advertising “Beer Wine Lotto,” to buy scratch-off tickets.
She buys scratch tickets three times daily. Four years ago, she won $1,000 on a $3 ticket, but she hasn’t won big since.
“Of course, you know, I’m expecting to get my money back,” Standifer said. “But if I don’t … I’m still gonna buy it.”
Standifer’s spending is one small part of the $82 billion spent annually by lottery players, the first input in a nearly nationwide system that brings state-sponsored gambling directly into a majority of U.S. neighborhoods through more than 200,000 stores.
Standifer — and millions of players like her — lose about 35 cents for every dollar they spend.
“Yesterday I spent like $130 and I won like $85,” Standifer said, meaning she lost $45.
Those losses — $29 billion a year nationally — are why lotteries exist. The losses fund government programs and enrich others, including a Canadian private equity billionaire and a Japanese convenience-store conglomerate.
In the popular imagination, the lottery is funded by people who spend a few dollars on a Powerball ticket when the jackpot gets big. This is not reality.
More than two-thirds of lottery sales are of instant scratch-off tickets, which range in price from $1 to $50. A sliver of players are responsible for most of that spending.
A 1999 report to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found the top 10% of lottery spenders accounted for two-thirds of sales. The most frequent players, the study found, had lower incomes, were high school dropouts and disproportionately Black.
High school dropouts spent four times more per year than college graduates. Black people spent, on average, nearly five times as much as white people.
Some states, like Massachusetts, are aware of frequent players’ importance. A 2016 study commissioned by the lottery showed that the top 10% of players account for about 40% of sales. The average player in that group reported lottery spending of nearly $200 per week.
In South Carolina, players with a household income of less than $35,000 a year spent more than twice as much as players with household incomes between $100,000 and $150,000, according to a 2014 state-commissioned study obtained by the Howard Center.
“When people get down, they probably take the last 10 or 20 dollars to try to make up 100 to 400 dollars,” said Cloyd White, 26, a construction worker from Jasper County, South Carolina, who estimated he spent $40 every day. “It’s a gamble and it’s risky, but I feel like it’s all about God.”
State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities
Lottery retailers in nearly every state are clustered in lower-income neighborhoods, driving a wealth transfer from less affluent and educated Americans to the multinational corporations that are increasingly managing the day-to-day operations of the state-sanctioned gambling games.
apnews.com
WARREN, Mich. (AP) — While the growing expansion of casinos and state-sanctioned sports betting steal the spotlight, state lotteries have nearly doubled in size over the past two decades, driving a multibillion-dollar wealth transfer from low-income U.S. communities to powerful multinational companies.
A nationwide investigation of state lotteries by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland found that lottery retailers are disproportionately clustered in lower-income communities in nearly every state. The investigation’s analysis of cellphone location data shows that the people who patronize those stores come from the same kinds of communities.
Once rare, lotteries now operate in all but five U.S. states. Driven by more than a half-billion dollars in annual ad spending, lottery ticket sales have grown from $47 billion to $82 billion since 2005, according to La Fleur’s 2022 World Lottery Almanac. In 10 states, lotteries generate more revenue than corporate income taxes.
The investigation also found that a key promise of lotteries across the country — that they support education — doesn’t hold up. Instead, lotteries often compound inequities by disproportionately benefiting college students and wealthier school districts far from the neighborhoods where most tickets are sold.
“Poor people are collateral damage to a cause of raising money for what the legislators feel is good purposes … public safety, local schools,” said Gregory W. Sullivan, a former Massachusetts inspector general and now research director for a free-market think tank in Boston.
The multibillion-dollar wealth transfer starts in places like Warren, Michigan, where Ashley Standifer buys tickets in one of the state’s poorest neighborhoods.
On a snowy April day, Standifer stopped by the Korner Party Store in this Detroit suburb, its largest sign advertising “Beer Wine Lotto,” to buy scratch-off tickets.
She buys scratch tickets three times daily. Four years ago, she won $1,000 on a $3 ticket, but she hasn’t won big since.
“Of course, you know, I’m expecting to get my money back,” Standifer said. “But if I don’t … I’m still gonna buy it.”
Standifer’s spending is one small part of the $82 billion spent annually by lottery players, the first input in a nearly nationwide system that brings state-sponsored gambling directly into a majority of U.S. neighborhoods through more than 200,000 stores.
Standifer — and millions of players like her — lose about 35 cents for every dollar they spend.
“Yesterday I spent like $130 and I won like $85,” Standifer said, meaning she lost $45.
Those losses — $29 billion a year nationally — are why lotteries exist. The losses fund government programs and enrich others, including a Canadian private equity billionaire and a Japanese convenience-store conglomerate.
In the popular imagination, the lottery is funded by people who spend a few dollars on a Powerball ticket when the jackpot gets big. This is not reality.
More than two-thirds of lottery sales are of instant scratch-off tickets, which range in price from $1 to $50. A sliver of players are responsible for most of that spending.
A 1999 report to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found the top 10% of lottery spenders accounted for two-thirds of sales. The most frequent players, the study found, had lower incomes, were high school dropouts and disproportionately Black.
High school dropouts spent four times more per year than college graduates. Black people spent, on average, nearly five times as much as white people.
Some states, like Massachusetts, are aware of frequent players’ importance. A 2016 study commissioned by the lottery showed that the top 10% of players account for about 40% of sales. The average player in that group reported lottery spending of nearly $200 per week.
In South Carolina, players with a household income of less than $35,000 a year spent more than twice as much as players with household incomes between $100,000 and $150,000, according to a 2014 state-commissioned study obtained by the Howard Center.
“When people get down, they probably take the last 10 or 20 dollars to try to make up 100 to 400 dollars,” said Cloyd White, 26, a construction worker from Jasper County, South Carolina, who estimated he spent $40 every day. “It’s a gamble and it’s risky, but I feel like it’s all about God.”
