Texas is seeking to drive up lottery sales. Revenue is down. The state has come to rely on the lottery to help balance the budget. Not enough people in Texas are playing. Only one out of three people in Texas is playing the lottery. The state needs more people to play.
People in Texas, and elsewhere, are constantly encouraged to play the lottery. There are bill boards, print ads, and television commercials enticing people to play. We are asked to wonder if today might be our lucky day. Naturally, the only way to know whether it is your lucky day is to buy a lottery ticket and find out. The state doesn't care whether you can afford to play. The state doesn't care if you have better things to spend your money on. The state doesn't care if you have a gambling problem. The state just wants you to play. They also want you to lose.
The lottery is a swindle by any standard. The odds of winning a three number ticket are a thousand to one. The odds of winning the jack pot are higher than that of being being hit by lightning. Much higher. You might as well follow an armored car and hope some money falls out the back. The odds never improve no matter how many times you play. In the case of scratch offs, the game is fixed. The state knows how many tickets are printed, how many winning tickets there are, and how much will be won.
The state gambles too. It gambles that not too many winning tickets will be sold too quickly. Ideally, just enough winning tickets are sold for just enough in pay outs that people will be more encouraged to play rather than become discouraged. Lottery boards are constantly tinkering to find the ideal balance to generate maximum profits and ensure maximum enthusiasm. It is not uncommon for people to become more excited over the lottery after they have won something. Even if it took them $100 to find a $20 winning ticket, they are still delighted. With customers like that, how can you lose?
In Texas, gambling used to be considered a vice. It still is, unless the state is running the game. If the lottery is not able to bring in the revenue needed to run the state, there is always prostitution and drugs. People are going to visit prostitutes and use drugs anyway, why not make money off it? People are prone to vice. There is no reason not to take advantage of that. If that is an idea that bothers some people, the state could simply set aside some of the money it takes in by selling drugs to offer counseling and rehabilitation. Some of the money raised by prostitution could be set aside to fund shelters for abused women. That should make everybody happy, and the state richer. Why waste vice when you can make money off it instead?
The lottery is a swindle, but it is a state sponsored swindle. That is the difference. Texas needs people to gamble and it needs them to lose. Texas made $3.74 billion last year with the lottery. In 1995, more than 70 percent of Texans played the lottery. Less than half that many are playing today. Rather than being pleased that fewer Texans are wasting their money buying lottery tickets, the state is concerned.
Texas wants people to gamble. You thought Texas was a conservative state.
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