Max Galka of Metrocosm compiled data from the New Your State Lottery which illustrates the deceptive methods used by the state governments to advertise, distribute revenues, reveal expenses and inflate ticket costs.
2015 The lottery is a tax, an inefficient, regressive, and exploitative tax
In its recent report, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families concludes that a lottery hurts the economic security and well-being of the state’s’ families – regardless of how much money it raised. The report lays out the following reasons: 1) Lotteries function as regressive taxes that disproportionately hurt the economic security of low-income families; 2) Lotteries are unstable sources of tax revenue that can decline from year to year. Overall, any positive effect on state budgets tend to fade over time; 3) Lotteries and other forms of gambling often lead to negative social and economic consequences for children and their Lotteries function as regressive taxes that disproportionately hurt the economic security of low-income families costs which must often be borne by the state; 4) Researchers have found that Georgia’s “Hope Scholarship” lottery, often cited as a model for lotteries in other states, is disproportionately funded by low-income households, while higher-income, more-educated households disproportionately benefit from the scholarships; 5) A lottery would do little to improve access to higher education among the lowest-income citizens and would prey upon those who stand to lose the most from state- sponsored gambling; and 6) If increasing access to higher education is indeed important to Arkansas’s future economic success, then the state should commit to finding a stable, reliable and fair source of funding for it.
The general manager of Henderson, Nevada’s Stetson Saloon and Casino has some advice for player club members: casinos don’t really care how much you win or lose. What matters to them is how long you play the games and how much you are willing to play. They care less about sending free slot play to frequent players (why waste it on people who are coming anyway?) and concentrate more on sending promotions to less frequent players. The manager of this casino also freely admits that, “the longer you play, the more money you are likely to lose.”
A research team at the University of Waterloo has done extensive studies of the psychology of gambling including the manipulation of music and sound effects to create the sensation that a user won even though they actually lost their money on the spin.
A recent $4.3 million ad campaign from the Ohio Lottery aims to show players how fun and exciting it is to play scratch tickets, even while making no implication as to whether the people in the commercial won anything. Scratch ticket sales in the US totaled $37.5 billion last year, disproportionately from poorer Americans who are playing these instant scratch tickets as a path to wealth. The fact is, even the Lottery realizes that these games are a poor and almost impossible way to achieve wealth, so these ad campaigns are looking to get players to play just for the instantaneous “buzz” or “high” people can get from these games, which, along with their money, is gone in seconds.
Ohio Lottery Trades the Promise of Riches for the Joy of Instant Gratification
This article by the Palm Beach Post documents the Lottery’s scramble in Florida to shut down certain stores after a previous investigation by the paper revealed fraud going on between store owners and Lottery players, allowing some players to win an incredible amount of times against all odds. The total of stores that the Lottery has closed down now totals 14 and some of those involved could face criminal charges if these allegations are true.
Florida Lottery suspends sales at 11 more stores after newspaper investigation
This article from The Oregonian details the validity of the Oregon Lottery’s claim that they do not show people playing or winning video lottery terminals (VLTs) in their advertising. After combing through all the evidence and reaching out to Lottery officials for clarification, Politifact Oregon has determined that claim to be “false”. This is another example of the Lottery’s questionable advertising practices, and shows that they are often not upfront with their ads.
Politifact: Does the Oregon Lottery show people playing and winning video lottery games
Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment, a major European online gambling company, released data on 4222 gamblers, and the math behind gambling win probabilities shows just how badly the odds are stacked against gamblers. Experts say these data figures are comparable to those of real casino here in the US, however casinos keep their data a heavily-guarded secret. The figures released show that statistically, the more you play, the more you’ll lose- the heaviest gamblers had only a 5.4% chance of ending in the black, compared with 17% of the customers who placed the least amount of wagers. Furthermore, the data shows that casinos and gambling operations rely mostly on problem gamblers for their revenue- 2.8% of the customers provided half of the company’s profits, and 10.7% provided 80% of revenue. This The Wall Street Journal article summarizes the findings.
2013 How Often Do Gamblers Really Win- New data provide some answers
The statistics behind winning the Lottery- be it a scratch ticket or a multi-million dollar jackpot- show that it is next to impossible for one person to win more than a handful of times. That’s why Lottery officials are scratching their heads at certain players who have turned in hundreds of winning scratch tickets yearly. Statistically, these people would have to be spending millions and millions of dollars to win this many times, but they aren’t. This has led many to believe that these lucky winners are actually middlemen- used by actual winners to help evade taxes taken out by the Lottery. This Boston Globe article explains how some players seem to have luck that never runs out.
Below is a chart that shows how your wages are taxed and hit with fees when you buy a Lottery ticket. It turns out “Lucky Joe” isn’t so lucky after all- over $10 of his original $13.82 is taken out for taxes and fees. Follow the path Lucky Joe’s wage takes when he buys a Lottery ticket and discover just how much the Lottery is taxing everyone who buys a ticket.
http://stoppredatorygambling.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2013-The-Lottery-Wage-Drain-graphic.pdf