June 21, 2007 7:29 AM

Capitalism: a system which convinces those who have the least to give to those who need it least

Rich, poor: Who spends the most on the lottery? $50 scratch-off game may be drawing in more wealthy players.

Several months ago, when the Texas Lottery Commission introduced a $50 scratch-off game, agency officials expressed confidence it would draw affluent customers. But they had little to base that assumption on. As it turns out, they were right for the first 10 days of sales, at least. But had they mapped ticket sales of their pricier tickets for the past 12 months ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ the $10, $20, $25, $30 and $50 games ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ they might have discovered retailers in the state’s 10 poorest ZIP codes sold $2.4 million of them, some 50 percent more than retailers in the state’s 10 wealthiest ZIP codes. Per-capita spending on the high-dollar tickets was $25 in the 10 poorest ZIP codes versus $18 in the 10 wealthiest.

I’ve never been a big fan of what I’ve always called the “Trailer Park Retirement Plan”. With the long odds and historically and criminally low return on investment, playing the lottery is to long-term investment what Hannibal Lecter was to vegetarianism. There’s a reason that some wags refer to lotteries as a “stupidity tax”, I suppose. It should come as no great surprise, then, that those most likely to spend their disposable income on lottery tickers are generally those with the least disposable income. Yes, the rich really are different. For one thing, they tend to be smarter about how the handle their money.

Historically, lotteries have provided state governments with financial windfalls that have allowed them to do things they previously might have been unable to afford- like funding public education, f’rinstance. How many states now have their public schools freebasing lottery money as if it was high-grade Bolivian marching powder? In too many states, taking away lottery money would mean that children would be hunting rats for their lunches and learning in 47-degree classrooms.

Surely something is horribly wrong when we’re vacuuming the money for public education out of the wallets of the poor, the uneducated, and the financially unsophisticated??

In the state’s poorest ZIP code, which the 2000 Census identifies as 79901 in El Paso, retailers sold nearly $483,000 in all pricey scratch-offs combined, more than retailers did in 11 of the state’s 12 wealthiest ZIP codes.

At a convenience store in that poor El Paso neighborhood, four blocks from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, clerk Steve Gonzalez sells a lot of pricey tickets to people who can least afford them.

Sometimes, he wants to tell them to save their dough.

“They spend to their last dollar,” Gonzalez said.

“(They) come in and they put a lot of money into these games. I have never seen people look so disappointed that their gambling odds didn’t come through. It’s really bad.”

A world away, John Dhuka doesn’t face such dilemmas as owner of a store in Rice Village, where the median family income in the last census stood at $104,000, making the area the state’s eighth-most affluent.

His customers have little interest in higher-priced tickets, so he doesn’t sell them.

And yet, since the state of Texas is addicted to lottery proceeds (it’s a budget line item), state officials are reduced to talking like addicts- “I don’t have a problem…but if I did, I could quit any time I wanted to.” Yeah, right; given the millions of lottery dollars that go to Texas’ public schools, just who do you think would suffer if lower-income Texans wised up and actually put their money where it might do them some good?

State officials dismiss suggestions that the poor are more apt to wager money on high-dollar lottery scratch-offs.

“Because it’s a poor neighborhood doesn’t mean that the poor are buying the tickets,” maintains Rep. Ismael “Kino” Flores, D-Palmview, who oversees the Lottery Commission as chairman of the House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee.

“Before, what used to be neighborhood stores now cater to people moving through the neighborhood. I’ve seen it. People stop at different stores and buy their tickets,” he said.

Right; substitute “drugs” for “tickets”, and the message wouldn’t really change all that much, would it? If Rep. Flores chooses to “protect” his constituents by denying reality, that’s his call. This isn’t to say that lower-income Hispanics are the only ethnic group prone to buying lottery tickets, but the reality is that they DO by a disproportionately large number of tickets. Yeah, it’s the “American Dream”; instant riches and the attendant lifestyle of comfort and luxury. The reality, though, is that for every winner we hear or read about, there are millions spending money like a dog chasing it’s tail.

The truth is that one really does have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery. Now, I’m not going to hold an 8-iron over my head in the middle of the 14th fairway at River Oaks Country Club to prove my point, but what sense does it make to buy a lottery ticket if you think it’s an “investment”? Then again, if you’re one of those who think that buying a car is an investment….

I’m not anti-gambling by any means. Hey, it’s a free country, after all, and, as an American, you’re free to toss your money down the rat-hole of your choice. I’m just not at all certain that the role of government should be the fleecing of it’s constituents- especially when you consider the dishonest and misleading marketing campaigns designed to attract suckers players.

By having a lottery, Flores said, the state gives folks a product they willingly line up to buy and at the same time raises more than a billion dollars a year in revenue for public schools.

“It’s like cigarettes,” Flores said. “If that’s what people want, let them buy it.”

Sure; and if they wanted crack, high expolsives, and semi-automatics weapons, the Legislature would be busily figuring out how to give the people what they want? Puhleeze….

I can’t help but wonder at what point we’ll recognize that, on average, those who have the least will spend the most on lottery tickets? And should government really be balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and financially uneducated? Is it just me, or does this sort of disregard for the least among us portend a horrific lack of leadership and foresight? Then again, I suppose it IS a whole Hell of a lot easier making sure they stay down on the farm, eh?

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on June 21, 2007 7:29 AM.

Newt Gingrich: hate him for the hypocrisy, love him for his open ignorance of historical reality was the previous entry in this blog.

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