The Orbis

Issue date: 2/13/02 Section: Undefined Section

Proponents of a state lottery in Tennessee love to talk about well-funded schools, college scholarships and an end to state budget problems.

They talk about it frequently these days, because when Tennesseans go to the polls next fall, they will vote on a constitutional amendment that would open the door to a lottery.

The truth is, lotteries prey on the poor. They may amount to a voluntary tax, as supporters often point out, but, if so, they are one of the most regressive taxes that have been developed.

Just think about it: where would most lottery outlets would pop up, along the tree-lined avenues of Belle Meade or among the public housing projects on the streets of East Nashville?

According to a recent Duke University study African-Americans, high school dropouts and people in the study's lowest income category spend the most money per capita on lottery tickets.

Some say this is capitalism at its best. New businesses would be going up to meet demand where it exists. A few--very few--poor customers might even get lucky, strike it rich and turn their lives around.

The odds against winning are astronomical, though, and for every lucky soul who spends the last few dollars of each month's paycheck to buy a handful of lottery tickets and wins millions, thousands more are just throwing their last dollars down the drain. Those extra few dollars could have bought Junior a good meal or a warm hat to wear on the long walk to school each morning.

Still, individuals have a right to do what they wish with their money, and not everyone who plays the lottery is desperately poor. The truth is, though, that states market lotteries to the poor and minorities.

Just drive through any state that has a lottery, look at the neighborhoods where lottery billboards stand and watch the television commercials promoting the lottery.

Florida, which has one of the nation's largest lotteries, concentrates much of its marketing in poor Hispanic areas.

Since Congress has exempted state lotteries from truth-in-advertising regulations, most states advertise their games misleadingly.

State government, the very government that we entrust with our protection, has no business marketing a lottery to the poor when that lottery just sucks money out of poor neighborhoods.

So where does the money go? Lotteries in other states are nearly always implemented alongside promises that the profits will go to support education or some other worthy goal. After all, who could be against sending more kids to college?

In practice, though, the money does not always go where it is promised. Voters in Kentucky adopted a lottery in 1988 after receiving pledges that the proceeds would benefit education and the elderly.

For years, however, the money went straight into the state's general fund, until finally public outcry grew to the point that legislators had no choice but to divert the money into a special fund.

Even when lottery proceeds are earmarked for education, or any other cause, from the beginning, funding from traditional sources often ends up being cut.

Michael Nelson of Rhodes College found that in most states, little or no net change in spending for the earmarked purpose ever occurs.

Supporters of the lottery in Tennessee have promised college scholarships based on Georgia's lottery-funded HOPE Scholarship program that lets any high school student who has a B average in Georgia attend a state college at no cost.

On the surface, a program that allows students to go to college sounds great. Georgia's program, however, ran a $44 million deficit in 2000.

In the end, the state was forced to divert money from a preschool program for low-income children to pay college tuition for middle class students who could have afforded the state tuition on their own.

Is Georgia really any better off after all that? Those preschool kids sure are not.

A lottery amounts to nothing more than state-sponsored gambling and gouging of the poor. Though it may be the individual's prerogative to participate in games of chance, no state should actively seek out gamblers, especially among the low income.

That, however, is exactly what has happened in other states, and that is likely what would happen if a lottery were to be enacted in Tennessee.

Lawmakers here need to get serious about solving the state's budget problems through meaningful reform, not with the false gold of a lottery.

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