Stop Predatory Gambling

More evidence why government needs to get out of the gambling business

by Les

False promises. Predatory practices.  Deeper levels of personal debt. Expendable citizens. There is perhaps no present government policy that emits a more wretched  stench of failure than government’s policy of predatory gambling. Here is the most recent evidence in what is an almost endless list of examples: The Associated Press has a story about the Arkansas Lottery’s failure to deliver on the revenues predicted by predatory gambling supporters despite promoting and making widely available highly addictive forms of gambling like instant scratch tickets.

Take a look at these remarkable excerpts:

1) The main problem for building a greater lottery profit margin is that Arkansas leads all other states in sales of scratch tickets, with the instant games accounting for 84 percent of total sales. Scratch tickets have higher costs and require a greater payout to keep players interested, Passailaigue said.

Scratch tickets, one the most predatory forms of gambling offered by lotteries, are 84% of total sales!

2) “I think we need to come up with an aggressive program,” Commissioner Ben Pickard said, suggesting Passailaigue look at other state lotteries for ideas.

“Aggressive program”? Arkansas already sells a $20 scratch ticket and makes 84%  of its sales from scratch tickets -highest in the nation.

3) Powerball had revenue of $35 million for the year, $16 million short of the projected budget. “This is about as anemic as you can get,” Passailaigue said.

The Lottery’s answer?  According to the story: “On Jan. 15, the price of Powerball tickets will double to $2. The number of tickets sold may decrease, but by less than 50 percent he said, which will drive profit margin, as should a state marketing campaign. “This is the most important thing we can do,” Passailaigue said.”

4) Passailaigue also said the lottery is in talks to take part in a planned national premium numbers game, in which tickets would cost $5. He’s also trying to add Arkansas to an international lotto game.

Is there demand among Arkansas citizens to be a part of national premium numbers game or an international lotto game? Of course not. Government is actively stimulating demand for more and more forms of gambling, ultimately pushing citizens into even deeper debt.

5) Commissioner Bruce Engstrom asked Passailaigue why the lottery agreed to percentage-of-sales contracts with its game vendors, which costs $15 million more per year than the fixed-fee contracts Passailaigue had with vendors when he ran South Carolina’s lottery. Engstrom said that over the seven-year life of the contracts, the lottery will be out of about $100 million.

The answer? “Passailaigue noted that the commission and the legislative Lottery Oversight Committee agreed to the plan when the lottery was being launched in 2009 and said the arrangement put pressure on vendors to get the lottery running quickly. He said every day the games were not running, the vendors were losing money.” The vendors were losing money? Why would state government be concerned whether the vendors were losing money? The stated “intent” of the lottery as a policy was to provide college scholarships? Why not the same concern and sense of urgency when citizens are losing money?

What is happening in Arkansas is happening all over America. Today we are one day closer to getting government out of the gambling business.