Assignment 16: Sanat Dharwad

 Chan, Melissa. “Powerball: How Winning the Lottery Makes You Miserable.” Time, Time, 12 Jan. 2016, time.com/4176128/powerball-jackpot-lottery-winners/. 

This article consists mainly of anecdotes from previous lottery winners and their friends, and stories of how the lottery ruined their lives. According to the National Endowment for Financial Education, 70% of people that receive a windfall of cash, like the lottery, will lose it within a few years. According to Don McNay, a financial advisor to lottery winners, hes seen people commit suicide, go bankrupt, and get divorced, all because of the lottery money. One story follows that of Jack Whitaker, who lost his daughter and grand-daughter to drug overdoses, which he blamed on the lottery. Another follows Sandra Hayes, whose family and friends turned into “vampires'' the moment she won the lottery. Abraham Shakespeare was killed by a friend that he had made right after he had won the lottery. From this we see that the problems of winning the lottery can manifest itself in many different ways. One good tale is told in the article however, that of Richard Lustig, who won the lottery 6 times and lived a happy life. The difference between him and the others was how much he had won from the lottery. He had only made 1 million out of his six lottery wins, while the others had made upwards of 20 million in one go, which may have had a different psychological impact. 

Spector, D., Lubin, G., & Kelley, M. B. (2012, April 06). 18 Signs That The Lottery Is Preying On America's Poor. Retrieved December 18, 2020, from https://www.businessinsider.com/lottery-is-a-tax-on-the-poor-2012-4

In this article, many statistics relating income versus how often, and why people play the lottery are examined, taking the viewpoint that the lottery is harmful towards those who have less money. The authors point to a review by the South Carolina Education Lottery that showed that people in households earning under 40,000 a year made up only 28% of the population, but composed 54% of the lottery’s frequent players. The article also points to many studies that find unemployment has a large effect on the rate at which people play the lottery. For example, according to the West Suburban Journal, the two counties in the west side of Chicago with the highest rates of unemployment also generated the highest sales. All of the evidence from this article shows that the lottery profits most off of the poor, while the poor are the group of people that are damaged most by the lottery. They enter because of some hope of money, even though the chances of that are slim, while their coffers are being emptied.

Goldman, David. “Does Powerball Really Fund Education?” CNNMoney, Cable News Network, 14 Jan. 2016, money.cnn.com/2016/01/13/news/powerball-education. 

This article discusses where the revenue from the lottery really goes, as some of what the lottery says is misleading. Lottery money in some states doesn't supplement money going to certain programs, it just replaces it. In this case, the money originally headed to those programs just goes to the general pool of money. This is the case in South Carolina, and since North Carolina fits this example and says that “100% of the proceeds go to the public education budget,” this is essentially false advertising, as the education system doesn’t get any more money depending on how many people play the lottery. In 2013, the US produced 20 billion dollars of revenue from the lottery, which went back into the states’ revenue pools. This shows how important the lottery is for funding. Just to put this in proportion (though this is not in the article) the annual state budget of Kansas is 18.4 billion dollars.

“Alabama Gets Session Date for Lottery Question.” Bond Buyer, vol. 1, no. 34555, Aug. 2016, p. 15. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,cpid,url&custid=s1176192&db=buh&AN=117218136.

This article covers the Alabama legislature’s decision on whether or not to include a question on the ballot for implementing a state lottery, which took place in 2016. The state had been running low on revenue, and Gov. Robert Bentley said that the lottery would provide an expected revenue of 225 million dollars. While critics didn’t want a lottery for ethical reasons, thinking that the lottery is a form of gambling, Bentley said "it's time we stop supporting other states' budgets and keep our money at home to solve our own problems," basically arguing that gambling through the lottery would happen anyways by virtue of people using the other states’ lottery, so establishing one in Alabama won't increase the amount of gambling at all. Earlier in the year, the fiscal budget passed through Bentley’s veto, which he did because the budget was 85 million dollars short of funding medicaid, a reason why the lottery seems necessary to pass.

Galka, Max “Who Plays the Lottery” The Single Largest Tax on Poor Families: the Lottery?,2015, https://metrocosm.com/could-the-lottery-be-the-largest-tax

This graph compares socioeconomic status (measured by quintiles) with the percent of population playing the lottery, as well as the number of days played. It shows how those in lower income quintiles are much more likely to play the lottery, the lower quintiles having a higher percentage of the population  playing and more games played. This graph helps show how people in lower income brackets disproportionately participate in the lottery. This graph relies on cited information, so it is credible.