Posted 6/09/2007 10:40:00 PM by Douglas

When it comes to gambling, the house sets the odds, and while they hope you don't know the odds, they know that you do, or at least you have a cocktail (or seven) while you're figuring them out. So what if the State is setting the odds? What would happen if you let the same people that can't seem to pave a road set the odds in their own game? You'd get the biggest sucker game ever invented. And thus was the beginning of the state lottery.

If you thought the state's priciest scratch-off tickets were sure to fly off the shelves mainly in areas where people could easily afford them, you haven't been crunching the numbers.

That's OK; neither has the state.

Several months ago, when the Texas Lottery Commission introduced a $50 scratch-off game, agency officials expressed confidence it would draw affluent customers. But they had little to base that assumption on.

As it turns out, they were right for the first 10 days of sales, at least.

But had they mapped ticket sales of their pricier tickets for the past 12 months — the $10, $20, $25, $30 and $50 games — they might have discovered retailers in the state's 10 poorest ZIP codes sold $2.4 million of them, some 50 percent more than retailers in the state's 10 wealthiest ZIP codes.

That goes back to who buys those stupid things in the first place, not so much as how much they spend on them. 50 $1 tickets isn't any less stupid or manipulative than one $50 ticket. But still, you'd think that proximity might play a factor in who buys tickets and where they buy them. You'd think that, unless you were a total idiot, the Lottery's spokesman, or in this case, both:

"Because it's a poor neighborhood doesn't mean that the poor are buying the tickets," maintains Rep. Ismael "Kino" Flores, D-Palmview, who oversees the Lottery Commission as chairman of the House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee.

"Before, what used to be neighborhood stores now cater to people moving through the neighborhood. I've seen it. People stop at different stores and buy their tickets," he said.

Robert Heith, the Lottery Commission's spokesman, said the only real way to determine who is buying big-dollar tickets would be to stand "at the door (of each retailer) and ask everybody who bought a lottery ticket where they lived."

Jimminy Cricket, they really are this stupid. Do they think people drive cross-town to go to a convenience store for lottery tickets? But never underestimate the stupidity, or hypocrisy, of an elected official:

"It's like cigarettes," Flores said. "If that's what people want, let them buy it."

Oh really? I wonder if Representative Flores feels the same way about crack, meth, heroin, R-12 and NON low-flush toilets? Does he want to sell everything the market shows demand for, or just things that fall directly into the State's coffers?

Personally, I think it's an idiot tax, just like when you get busted speeding. You pay your money and you feel like an idiot, but deep down, you think that next time you're going to get lucky. Maybe you won't get caught doing 80 in a 40, just like you might turn that one dollar ticket into $10,000. But never forget that the State sets the odds, and the system is predicated that in the long run, you are going to lose.

But what about the compulsive gambler that needs help saying no?

The state spent $2 million the first year on programs to help problem gamblers. The state now spends zero dollars on programs for problem gamblers even as ticket prices hit the stratosphere.

OK, that's too bad for them, then. So the State doesn't spend any money trying to get people to stop buying tickets, how much does it spend to get them to start?

The state spends about $33 million a year promoting the games that inspire dreams of instant riches.

Ahhhhh. . . that's the stuff. The State wielding its powers to encourage people to gamble. What a magnificent waste of authority.