In fact, statistics show the poorer tend to be the nest spending the most on the dreamy reward, which theoretically makes sense due to the fact that they’re the ones most desperate. But are lottery tickets a scam? Then, if so, why do we people keep purchasing? Lotteries prey on the poor and even the lucky winners feel they were cursed. Lotteries weren’t always in existence and were banned in many countries including the US. That is until World War 2 happened; the government was in debt so they allowed the lottery to increase revenue without raising taxes.
That all sounds great and dandy, but it isn’t without its major flaws. The Hansen of winning in the 2012 US Mega Millions lottery were a likelihood of 1 in 259,000,000 or the Powerboat Jackpot with a chance of 1 in 175. 2 million. There’s a more likelihood of being struck by lightning (one in 3 million), attacked by a shark(one in 1 1. 5 million), or even becoming a billionaire(with an astounding one in 785,166). (Investigated) Its ridiculous and insane how rare the chance of a win is and, let’s face it, why not Just become a billionaire.
Logically assuming, the more desperate are the more likely to spend on the lottery. Why would any system use the poor to fund for economic problems? The power of greed is a major contribution as to why lotteries are a bad idea. Lotteries should be re-banned due to the fact that they pick on the poor, bring bad policy, and are simply a waste of money. Even with winners abounding, not all feel like they’ve won and some even think they were cursed. Others need hope more desperately than others. So when false hope comes into town, that’s when things get really twisted.
But who it is affecting the most is the real question. The poor and uneducated are exactly what the lotteries are targeting. Households that earn less than $13,000 a year invest the most time and money on territories. In fact, they spend an astounding 9% of their money on it. It’s really a regressive tax on those least able to afford it. The typical U. S. Family spending spends nearly the same share of its money on insurance and pensions, including the insurance programs like Social Security (Thompson). People who can least afford it are throwing away on average 47 cents on the dollar every time they are buying a ticket. And the government, which relies increasingly on the lottery for funding, goes out of its way to tell them it’s a good idea”(linseed). But what can determine the seasoning for all this? Per capita sales are the highest in the poorest counties of North Carolina. During the 2009-10 NC Education Lottery sold $1. 42 billion dollars worth on lottery tickets. With an adult population of 7,102,917, it meant that it was enough for every adult in the state to have spent $200. 1 in lottery sales over a year of time. All but two of the 20 most impoverished counties had per capita sales that topped the state average based on the North Carolina Policy Watch. (NCSC) Another crisis occurred in South Carolina where people in households earning under $40,000 counted for 28% of its population but made up 54% of frequent players (extraterritoriality’s. Org). The complete irony is how the people who should be least qualified to play are the ones playing the most. If anything, the lottery should be played as a form of fun and not a form of desperation. Poor people were 25% more likely to play for money, rather than fun, compared to average in one survey'(Block, Just, and Simon). But the poor wasn’t the only major group spending. Even though the uneducated and unemployed can also likely be poor, they also have a big contributing factor to the spending of lottery tickets. In Texas, instant tickets were more likely to be purchased by a person who was out of work than someone who was employed or retired(Dimmer). 49 percent of Californians with less than a high school education participated during one week of a California Lottery, compared to 30 percent of those with a college degree.
Lottery play was most popular among laborers and least among advanced professionals (Clottier & Cook). A survey conducted by the University of Texas-Arlington School of Urban and Public Affairs showed how the median amount spent by someone with less than a high school education was $600 while someone with a graduate school education spent $156. If we were to get into the discussion of race, based on the same survey, the median for blacks was $700 compared to whites with about $250. Declaimer) The amount spent by the uneducated is about four times as much as how much the educated spent. In Massachusetts, the state with the most popular lottery, annual ticket sales amounted to about a staggering $663 per citizen in 2003, which is more than the average ratio of spending by the uneducated. With all the major spending from the people that ant afford it, karma comes into play and gives people the reality of their actions. A 1994 study from Indiana University found that from 1983 to 1991 lottery sales tended to rise with unemployment rates. National Tax Journal) All around the US, based on research, shows that the poor get the short end of the stick. “The highest concentration of Connecticut lottery players was in the poorest cities- New Haven, Hartford, and Bridgeport”(The Currant). Of six counties studied on the west side of Chicago in 2008, the two with the highest unemployment- Bellowed and Manhood- also generated the highest per capita sales. In 2008, during the height of the recession, at least 22 of the 42 states with lotteries -? including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut -? set sales records. The researchers conclude that lotteries set off a vicious cycle that not only exploits low-income individuals’ desires to escape poverty but also directly prevents them from improving upon their financial situations”(UCM). If the poor, instead of wasting the majority of their money on lottery tickets, did something with the money such as saving up to invest, they can have a place to start for improvement. But if they do keep insisting on gambling, they’re cost likely not ending up anywhere and will find themselves in an even bigger rut than before.
Sometimes it’s best not to dream so big if it’s going to ruin your life. “The hope of getting out of poverty encourages people to continue to buy tickets, even though their chances of stumbling upon a life-changing windfall are nearly impossibly slim and buying lottery tickets in fact exacerbates the very poverty that purchasers are hoping to escape”(UCM). People behind the lotteries try to convince everyone by saying there are studies proving no correlation between the purchase of tickets and poverty. They have no idea of the cruel misleading they’ve been throwing out to the entire country for so many years.
Anyone can realize how ridiculous that is. All in all it makes sense though. The simple logic concludes it: the rich have less off need for the money than the poor. But what happens to the winners? With the extremely vast amounts of losers, every now and there comes the winner of the lottery. If someone were to go to the gas station and win the lottery after deciding to get a ticket, does it equal happiness? Sure at the time and place; anyone would be jumping with excitement and consider it a dream come true, but how does it affect inners in the long run?
The question of whether it’s a curse or blessing never comes to mind due to the fact that its presumed to be one of the best things in the world (which in theory does, in fact, seem reasonable). To find out the truth, the only way possible is by asking the winners themselves. In an interview on CNN a woman explains her life story after the lottery and asked not to be identified. She was a mother who had 3 kids in a small apartment and was working four Jobs. After winning, she believed it like a fairy tale and was in shock of the ticket. $1. Million as slashed in taxes and the rest was hers, so she decided to cut work down to Just one Job. With the money she bought a new wardrobe and invested the remaining. Everything seemed fine and a pretty wise way to go about the money but that all ended when the phone calls came. The received calls consisted of people bringing up promises, marriage proposals, accusations, and even threats. Everyone she thought was close to her turned against her. People who used to volunteer to help her do things wanted money from her for their troubles. The concept of family was eliminated, and the element of greed took over.
They tried to run her life and control her money. “Sometimes I wish I could change my name and go somewhere and hided(CNN). The lottery devastated her so much that she wished that she could get herself a new identification. There are countless incidences of people who have had their lives ruined by winning the lottery. The winner’s surroundings suddenly become untrustworthy and they’re on their own. It can be taken to even more gruesome stances. Abraham Shakespeare, a man from Florida, was slain after winning a $31 million lottery. Here’s where it gets twisted; the person accused of the murder was his very own friend.
The idea of a curse makes sense due to the trend created. A West Virginian businessman named Andrew “Ace Whittaker Jar. Won $112 million after the tax cut in 2002 and things went wrong ever since. He lost his granddaughter and daughter, by death, and he’s been dealing with countless robberies ever since (CNN). But, of course, not all lottery winners lose it all due to others. Sometimes it’s their own greed and stupidity they need to worry about. Strangely enough, almost every lottery winner goes broke and it doesn’t end in a subtle manner.
A 55-year old man by the name of Malcolm Ramsey, who lives in the Loving Care Assisted Facility in Tampa, suddenly got visitors from his “loved ones” who never rarely visited him before. The nursing staff noticed that he was coming back with bags of clothes and other items such as shoes (he had shoe boxes covering all over his walls). Mr.. Ramsey was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and doesn’t take any medication, which meant that he was incapable of caring for anyone including himself and his finances. He had won the lottery and he spent all of his money in only 4 weeks.
On top of that, he’s now in danger of losing his government benefits because of how much money he received at one time. Because he has a disease, it’s assumed to be the reason for all the loss, but the odd truth is that this happens too large number of people without a disease at all. Evelyn Adams, from New Jersey, won the lottery not once but twice in a row, adding up to a total of $5. 4 million. Unfortunately she was a frequent gambler and used her lotto winning resulting in a brutal outcome. She had spent all her money and by 2001 was broke and living in a trailer park. The Daily Beast) Sometimes a winner is his worst enemy but not every lotto winner loses it all by his or her own actions. Sometimes it’s the people they love the most. Friends and family members leach like vampires when someone they know wins the lottery and starts a messy catastrophic epidemic. Like Ramsey, people show attention Just to use lottery winners, whether it’s a friend or even family member. Jack Whittaker, himself, dealt with lending out a total of $50 million to people asking for money. (The Daily Beast) But the worst of them all occurred to William “Bud” Post Ill who had won $16. Million in the Pennsylvania lotto in 1988 where the people he was closest to were going after him. The problems started almost immediately, and his landlady (sometime girlfriend) had sued him eying they agreed to split the winnings. She won the court battle and left $5. 3 million of it. His legal fees added up to $129,000 in one year that very same time. But things didn’t end there. His brother was convicted of trying to kill Post and his wife by hiring a hit man. He tried to make it look like a murder-suicide but it didn’t pan out as planned.
Post had already received a 24-month prison sentence for firing a gun at someone trying to collect a debt at his house. His life came to an end in 2006. “L had to endure the greed and the need that people have, trying to get you to release your none to them. It caused a lot of emotional pain”, said 52 year-old Sandra Hayes who had won the Powerboat Jackpot (USA Today). The list goes on for the amounts of times situations such as this had occurred. Its makes one wonder who is really out to help you succeed or there to help you when you hit rock bottom.
The irony about proof is that even after knowing how slight the chances are of winning, players still believe they have a chance and aren’t, in fact, wasting their money. “We have the Cinderella complex-?there’s a fairy godmother who’s going to come down and save us”(CNN) All unmans like to consider themselves different and more special than each other, which brings in an oxymoron because in reality that Just makes everyone the same. No one is luckier or more special than one another. Some people are Just at the right place at the right time.
But even so, those people are the ones who end up saying they were there at the wrong place at the wrong time. In conclusion, Lottery tickets are a scam and a way to pick from the most desperate. Historical data implies that when the economy goes bad, lottery revenues go up, because “when people are lending desperate, they are more likely to stop by the gas station and buy five lottery tickets, hoping they get a big windfall. ” False hope is never something to praise. Spending a dollar on a lotto doesn’t sound like much but for frequent players it adds up quick.
