Lotterynomics

ARE WE AS POOR AS WE THINK WE IS?

By Mande Wilkes

FITSNews – July 7, 2008 – We’ve got it stuck into our heads that the economy is looking bad – terrible, horrible, no good, very, very, very bad. Nationally, regionally, locally – it’s bad, people. Or is it?

Judging by lottery ticket sales, nothing could be further from the truth.

Revenue from our state’s “non-gambling gambling” system is way up – a fact which, though headlining newspapers, is curiously not causing many people to question the validity of the “bad economy” refrain.

Seriously, newspapers are running the story about increased lottery revenue next to stories about our financial dire straights … which leads us to wonder if anybody is paying attention.

Maybe people have finally grown tired of irony, or maybe they’ve just grown immune to its presence.

Anyway, lottery sales are up three percent from last year, raising the contribution of the games to South Carolina’s K-12 and higher ed systems (most of it higher ed) by $266 million.

That figure means about $14 million more will be going to “education” than officials originally expected, meaning South Carolina can now plan more “A-Tooty-Ta” enhancement lessons!

But why does nobody seem interested in reconciling the booming lottery revenue with the bad economy?

Lottery chief Ernie Passailaigue, when questioned about the connection, demonstrated his financial illiteracy by embarrassingly patting himself on the back for creating fun games which players can’t turn down – irrespective of whether they can actually afford to play.

Passailaigue explained that lottery sales are exploding amid a bad economy because of the array of tickets offered, such as NASCAR games and Harley-Davidson games.

So, all businesses have to do in a bad economy is offer plenty of alternatives from which maxed-out consumers can choose?

That flies in the face of the notion of a “bad economy,” but unfortunately Passailague may be right.

Maybe what is going on – and the SC Lottery was the first to figure this out – is that there’s merely the appearance of a bad economy, and people can easily poo-poo their worries when they’ve got a zillion nooses from which to choose the one they’ll use to hang their finances.

In a further attempt to explain the lottery gains, Passailaigue posited that sales have increased because of – not in spite of – economic woes.

Though we can only hope that this is misguided conjecture, Passailaigue says that people are more willing to play the lottery for the chance to pay off their credit cards or save their homes from foreclosure.

If this is true, South Carolinians need a lesson in probability and statistics, a calculator, and a Home Ec class…stat!

That someone would participate in the lottery in an effort to save their finances – or even that someone would convince themselves that that’s why they’re playing – is an alarming testament to American gluttony and lunacy.

Of course, some Robin Hood types are using the lottery explosion as evidence that the richer are getting richer. A politically handy theory, until you look at the hard numbers.

Lotteries are notoriously regressive, baiting those with the least disposable income – and those with the most to lose. Households making $13,000 spend about $645 annually on the lottery. That’s 9 percent of the total household income going to the lottery!

If the Robin Hood types are right and the rich are getting richer, it’s well-deserved and also ineluctable. Spending almost ten percent of one’s earnings on the lottery kind of guarantees that there will be no socioeconomic mobility for that person.

But if the rich are getting richer on the backs of our poorest, the government is also benefiting from the poor’s bad decisions.

The SC Lottery is, after all, a part of state government, and it’s raking it in as people keep doling it out.

Whether we call it a recession or a downturn or stagflation, it’s just semantics. The proof, as always, is in the pudding, and our bellies are as full as ever.

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