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I think what you're saying is that lottery tickets function as a regressive tax, along with cigarette and alcohol taxes. The poorest and disproportionately taxe

by smabie 6y ago

I think what you're saying is that lottery tickets function as a regressive tax, along with cigarette and alcohol taxes. The poorest and disproportionately taxed with these kinds of products. It's a good point, and many economists are against regressive taxation. But people want to gamble and you're not going to change their behavior by eliminating the lottery. Before state run lotteries, numbers games were very popular and run by organized crime. The government has much less power to change people's behavior that many assume. After all, the drug war has been a historic failure, just like prohibition before it. You might as well make these kinds of activities legal in order to reduce violence and disempower organized crime. People are gonna do what they want to do and ultimately, they are responsible for those (possibly poor) decisions. You can't protect people from themselves, only try and give them the tools to make decisions that maximize happiness over their life-time.

BoorishBears 6y ago
No one is saying gambling should be illegal or the government should somehow force people to stop gambling... But there is so much that could be done to try and limit the damage it's doing to poorer populations, and increase the good it's doing for those populations at the same time. Bans and restrictions on advertising lotteries, limiting points of sale per sq. mi., actually using the funds as claimed when instated, focusing on the types of gambling and their effect on addiction rates (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-excess/202003/problem-gambling-vs-gambling-addiction https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-excess/202003/pro...), changes to the actual act of playing the lottery (even things as simple as purchasing process can have profound effects on how people get their "hit" from gambling). Look at cigarettes, they're still legal, yet through policy America has gone from a country where the vast majority of adults smoked (almost 70%), to one where less than 15% of the population does. Now this being HN I need to put the disclaimer that I'm not saying every piece of tobacco legislation maps perfectly to gambling if you Ctrl+F replace... but it shows how truly vast the gully between banning something and letting it proliferate is. If there was truly interest in helping these people there are countless levers that could be used to try and balance the scale. But there's the perverse combination of financial incentive to do nothing, and political disincentive to do anything as long as politicians can get away with their treatment of these people.
- smabie 6y ago
  But cigarettes are an extreme example of a tax on the poor, just like lotteries. From your rhetoric, I would have imagined that you would be against the aggressive taxation on cigarettes. I know I am.
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    I even gave the disclaimer it's own paragraph.

by smabie 6y ago

BoorishBears 6y ago

No one is saying gambling should be illegal or the government should somehow force people to stop gambling... But there is so much that could be done to try and limit the damage it's doing to poorer populations, and increase the good it's doing for those populations at the same time. Bans and restrictions on advertising lotteries, limiting points of sale per sq. mi., actually using the funds as claimed when instated, focusing on the types of gambling and their effect on addiction rates (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-excess/202003/problem-gambling-vs-gambling-addiction https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-excess/202003/pro...), changes to the actual act of playing the lottery (even things as simple as purchasing process can have profound effects on how people get their "hit" from gambling). Look at cigarettes, they're still legal, yet through policy America has gone from a country where the vast majority of adults smoked (almost 70%), to one where less than 15% of the population does. Now this being HN I need to put the disclaimer that I'm not saying every piece of tobacco legislation maps perfectly to gambling if you Ctrl+F replace... but it shows how truly vast the gully between banning something and letting it proliferate is. If there was truly interest in helping these people there are countless levers that could be used to try and balance the scale. But there's the perverse combination of financial incentive to do nothing, and political disincentive to do anything as long as politicians can get away with their treatment of these people.

smabie 6y ago
But cigarettes are an extreme example of a tax on the poor, just like lotteries. From your rhetoric, I would have imagined that you would be against the aggressive taxation on cigarettes. I know I am.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  I even gave the disclaimer it's own paragraph.