Why Should The Lottery Be Banned

The history of the lottery began some fifty plus years ago where before then it was banned in every state in America. After state governments decided it was partly their responsibility to protect citizens from the dangers of gambling, they found it to be their duty to govern the lottery. New Hampshire established the first state lottery in 1964, it then soon spread throughout the northeast. All the states between Maryland and Maine had a lottery, by 1978. Lotteries went west in the 1980s, adding 18 more states from Virginia to California. The southern states held out the longest. In the 1990s, only three southern states authorized lotteries and five more in the 2000s. Today 44 states promote and operate lotteries with Wyoming being the last …show more content…
In October 1999, Alabamians rejected the governor’s plan to create a lottery to pay for education initiatives. The proposal was modeled after the Georgia lottery and was opposed by 54 percent of the nearly 1.3 million voters on the October 12, 1999 referendum. More recently, the Alabama Jobs Foundation (AJF), which is a group of businessmen working for passage of bill to allow lottery and casino gaming in the state of Alabama, presented data showing that Alabamians want an opportunity to vote on potential lottery and casino expansion. The poll, conducted in July 2015, showed that 89% of state voters want a vote on gambling; 80% support a lottery for education; 69% support a gambling/lottery constitutional amendment. 77% support a gambling compact between the state and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and 66% oppose new taxes to solve the state’s current budget crisis. Considering the fact that Alabama is one of the states makes up the “Bible Belt” region which has conservative values and is considered to be politically conservative, the 80% support for a lottery, according to the poll, might be misleading. Typically in the south, the religious groups are the chief opponents (mainly Republicans) who believe that gambling is immoral and it preys on the poor. The proponents (mainly Democrats) focus on all the good that the lottery money can do, like paying for schools or scholarships, for instance. However, a …show more content…
One way to estimate potential lottery revenues is to compare average revenues from other states with lotteries. In 2013, state-run lotteries brought in $62 billion, which amount to $257 in sales to every adult in the nation. In Fiscal Year 2014, the Georgia Lottery remitted $26.2 million to the Georgia Department of Revenue in tax withholdings from lottery prizes. Additionally, the lottery collected $244,000 in state back taxes from prize winners. Colorado took in $78 million in revenues and Arizona received $24.7 million in revenue from lotteries last year. The Tennessee lottery reported gross sales of 1.36 billion for fiscal year end 2013. On the contrary, the national average would not apply to Alabama because the variance among states is so large and it would be a mistake to assume otherwise. For example, in 1993, the states with lotteries had a per capita net income $47.42. Alabama’s population of approximately 4.2 million, would net an estimated $198 million. However, per capita net income among lottery states is extensive, with a high of $96 in Massachusetts and a low of $19.63 in Missouri. Look at two lottery states which are similar to Alabama in per capita income ($17,925) in 1994. The two are Idaho ($18,403) and Montana ($17,824) where revenues per capita averaged $27.52 and $20.17, respectively, for an average of $23.84. Based on this average, Alabama might