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Of all the taxes in the world, I have no real problem with lotteries. I can see there is an argument for needing to have clearer advertising on what the house
by brc 11y ago
Of all the taxes in the world, I have no real problem with lotteries. I can see there is an argument for needing to have clearer advertising on what the house 'take' is on the he tickets, but most people don't know how much tax they are paying on their fuel, electricity, alcohol etc.
Yes, it's regressive on the poor as these people overwhelming play the lottery. But so are alcohol and cigarette taxes. The point of those taxes is to raise revenue from undesirable activities as they both have inelastic demand curves and need to be curbed if possible for the good of society.
Perhaps a useful improvement woudo be to cap the number of lottery tickets a person can buy.
Certainly it makes me depressed to see how much selling lottery tickets dominates retailing in small stores. That means a lot of money is being raked in.
- tptacek 11y agoState lotteries don't try to curb gambling, despite broad recognition of the harm it inflicts. It's rather the opposite: they're elaborately designed and marketed to draw people in.
- brc 11y agoSure, and tobacco and alcohol taxes only do a mild job in curbing consumption - the collectors of the excise taxes are designed and marketed to draw people in. A 'sin tax' really only operates at the margin and are -clearly- not effective at stopping people with a dependence on the 'sin'. At most it encourages under-consumption with people who only have a mild tendency to use that product.