With Pennsylvania and New Jersey both thinking about privatizing their lotteries, anti-gambling advocate Paul Davies takes issue. Among the potential consequences:
- Politically connected hacks take on the lucrative business
- Privatization likely equals expansion and more marketing, meaning more people gambling their savings away
- The move won’t actually make any money for the states, especially if you take into account increased demand for social services from problem gamblers
- Why are we promoting gambling as public policy in the first place?
Casinos/ lotteries/ other forms of sanctioned gambling are essentially ways for cities and states to gain revenue without having to say they raised taxes. See, it’s not a tax if people choose to flush their money into a slot machine and directly or indirectly it ends up in the treasury. Which is true, after a fashion, but ultimately, a white flag that we are incapable of creating rational budgets that don’t rely on taking advantage of people’s vices and addictions.
I have heard that for every dollar generated through casino expansion in a metropolitan area, the location in question experiences an increase in three dollars for demand for social services.