Americans spent $68 billion playing the lottery last year, more than they spent on movie tickets, music, professional sports, video games and porn combined.. You can think of state lotteries as a tax on the dreams of the poor, since the poor spend more on these state-sponsored gambling schemes than more well-off people. Lottery ads sell hope, but the odds of winning are hopeless (1 in 176 million).
States sold the lottery concept to voters by saying the money earned would go to good causes like education, but it doesn’t, it merely displaces existing funding instead of supplementing it, so school budgets are flat or reduced.
Lottery winners are notoriously bad with their money. Hey, if they were good with money, would they play the freakin’ lottery in the first place?
John Oliver recently analyzed the lottery on his television program:
Related, the Lottery for the rich:
“Frenzied Financialization,” Michael Konczal, Washington Monthly
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Tags: gambling, John Oliver, lotteries, lottery, state government, state lotteries
NotionsCapital 
November 24, 2014 at 2:10 am
It’s funny….. but too real. Thanks for posting it.