The Massachusetts Lottery is, what the author of this Boston Globe article calls, “a Robin Hood in reverse”. Like most lotteries, it generates the most profit from poorer communities, filled with impoverished people who feel the only way to get out of their dead-end situation is to get lucky on the lottery. However, these poor communities receive back in aid a fraction of what they put in through revenue, while richer towns enjoy much higher levels of aid than they contribute to the system.
