Stop Predatory Gambling

The Tarheel Scheme

by spgadmin

Bernie Madoff must be sitting in his North Carolina jail cell saying to himself that he went into the wrong business.

Yesterday, the Legislature in his new home state voted in support of allowing state lottery tickets to be sold at check cashing locations. Read the story here.

It shows how predatory gambling, the ultimate “something for nothing” scheme, has become one of the key drivers in our debt culture and has split Americans into two classes of people: The Investor Class and The Lottery Class.

The Investor Class has mutual funds and other investment vehicles to save for retirement and their kids’ college education. You can be certain that virtually no member of the Investor Class uses a check cashing store. They own the store.

The Lottery Class represents the more than one out of five Americans who, according to the Consumer Federation of America, believe the best way to achieve long-term financial security is to play the Lottery. We have turned people who are small earners with the potential to be small savers into a new class of habitual bettors.

We have a shrinking middle class in America in large part because of predatory institutions and one of the very worst is the State Lottery. It is not possible to have a large Lottery Class and a strong, expanding middle class at the same time. We must act to stop it.