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The holiday spirit

Posted on November 28, 2007 by Staff

Chris Fitzsimon

The news is always full of heartwarming stories this time of year, somebody helping a stranger, going the extra mile to help people less fortunate.

Then there’s the North Carolina “Education” Lottery, which teaches us all a much different lesson, even in this holiday season. Lottery revenues continue to fall short of initial projections and nobody still believes the claims by lottery proponents that revenue from state-induced gambling will dramatically improve the funding for public schools.

Lottery executives continue to scramble to come up with new ways to get more people to play the lottery. That’s their job after all, their compensation is based on it.

It’s their mindset too. They were hired to run the lottery like a business, to maximize revenues, and everybody applauds them for it, even when increasing sales and revenues really means convincing more people in the state to spend their money this holiday season on the tiny chance they will strike it rich.

The people most susceptible to the appeal are the ones with the least to spend and the most to lose, folks already struggling to make ends meet and find enough money to buy holiday presents for their families.

There are new lottery instant games to coincide with the season, with names like Jingle Big Ol’ Bucks, Holiday Cash and Merry Money, and the Merry Millionaire Raffle.  That’s the holiday spirit.

Lottery officials are trying to convince more retail outlets to sell lottery tickets, to make it more convenient for people buying three-dollar-a-gallon gas to spend whatever is left of their holiday bonus on lottery tickets.

Lottery officials also want to increase the prize payout of the games and want a larger advertising budget. Getting as much money as they can from people is the singular goal, regardless of who the people are, how much money they have or how much they can afford to spend.

Even the allegedly positive stories come with disturbing endings. A custodian at a Charlotte elementary school recently won $200,000 from a scratch-off ticket. She told reporters that she plans to use the money to retire some debt, buy a new car and pay for her sons’ college education.

Sort of a heartwarming story, a low-wage worker winning that much money to help her family.

That’s what the lottery supporters will tell you it is all about, giving people like her a chance to hit it big and at the same time raising money for education.

The end of the story probably won’t be cited much in future lottery ads. The woman was spending $500 a month on lottery tickets and plans to keep playing.

It is hard not to wonder how many other custodians and waitresses and part-time workers are also spending $500 a month trying to win, spending a lot of car payments and college tuition money on the slim chance to win some Jingle Big Ol’ Bucks.

Enough is enough. Let’s applaud when fewer people are deceived into thinking they can get rich if they just keeping buying lottery tickets.

If we are going to have the dreadful lottery, let’s make sure it is run efficiently and without corruption, (aside from its corrupt premise) and let people play if they want to. No aggressive advertising, no holiday games and no obsession with increasing sales.

It’s true that we need more resources to build schools. But let’s get the money honestly and stop trying to convince people who can least afford it to buy more lottery tickets. That would be a heartwarming holiday story.

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