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At one time lotteries were run by the mob and known as the 'numbers' game. All well and good, it was voluntary on both sides, yet still it was a predatory enterprise in which people bad at math were victimized. It was illegal, and numbers runners who were foolish enough not to pay off politicians were subject to arrest and jail.
Fast forward a few years and the 'numbers' game was taken over by the states and redubbed the 'lottery.' It was still a predatory enterprise, but now it was legal. The gov't''s appetite was whetted. They quickly went from lotto to casino.
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Originally Posted by gerson
And the technology of gambling has been fine-tuned to encourage addiction. Slot machines – the main source of revenue – are sophisticated computers designed to elicit Pavlovian responses. Players are fed a diet of small wins on the way to larger losses. They are encouraged to enter the “zone,” to have a smooth, gradual “ride,” until their money is exhausted, known as “playing to extinction.”
In this case, compulsive behavior is not the unfortunate side effect of a game of chance. It is the intended result of a software program.
State governments, which have often been improvident in their own finances, have turned to the active encouragement of improvidence in citizens as a source of revenue
Big gov't claims to care for us, but in reality has our best interests in mind no more than Al Capone or Bugsy Siegel.
What is it that you Libertarians/tea partiers or whatever you call yourselves these days? No one is forcing you to play the lottery. I only play it for a minimum win of $500M. If I don't win, then I wait until $600M and +50M after that. It could be a month or more before I play it again. If people want to **** their money away for chump change every week, then that's their problem, right my dear Libertarian heroes?
No one forces people to gamble. Yes, it can be addicting, but so can anything. Why aren't you getting mad at the government for allowing alcohol? That can be just as addicting.
What is it that you Libertarians/tea partiers or whatever you call yourselves these days?
What does what libertarians call themselves these days have to do with this topic? We call ourselves libertarians, same as we always have.
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No one is forcing you to play the lottery.
Nobody forced people to take mortgages they couldn't pay for either, but that got liberals' panties in a twist anyway with their cries of "predatory lending practices".
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I only play it for a minimum win of $500M. If I don't win, then I wait until $600M and +50M after that. It could be a month or more before I play it again. If people want to **** their money away for chump change every week, then that's their problem, right my dear Libertarian heroes?
Yes, that's entirely correct. But the post never said people were forced to play it.
The point of the post is that lotteries inherently play against the known and researched aspect of human nature to continually seek rewards and that studies show the people who play the lottery most are the lower socioeconomic classes. So lotteries take advantage of the psychology of poor people to leech millions of dollars out of them as each of them seeks a reward that will never come for the vast majority of them.
This isn't a benevolent thing for government to do. It's unethical.
No one forces people to gamble. Yes, it can be addicting, but so can anything. Why aren't you getting mad at the government for allowing alcohol? That can be just as addicting.
Well gamblinging is a disease and the government is the pusher. They specifically target low income minorities, where is the outrage from the democrats?
What is it that you Libertarians/tea partiers or whatever you call yourselves these days? No one is forcing you to play the lottery. I only play it for a minimum win of $500M. If I don't win, then I wait until $600M and +50M after that. It could be a month or more before I play it again. If people want to **** their money away for chump change every week, then that's their problem, right my dear Libertarian heroes?
And what the **** do you call yourself, huh?
Because we all know you're another brainwashed (see what I did there?) American who was spoon fed political narratives until you picked a "team." You're not special, and are just another number in a long line of stupid Americans who have no clue how this country is actually being run.
Well gamblinging is a disease and the government is the pusher. They specifically target low income minorities, where is the outrage from the democrats?
Prove that they target low income minorities. And what about alcoholism? The government allows that, and no one on this site gives a damn.
At one time lotteries were run by the mob and known as the 'numbers' game. All well and good, it was voluntary on both sides, yet still it was a predatory enterprise in which people bad at math were victimized. It was illegal, and numbers runners who were foolish enough not to pay off politicians were subject to arrest and jail.
Fast forward a few years and the 'numbers' game was taken over by the states and redubbed the 'lottery.' It was still a predatory enterprise, but now it was legal. The gov't''s appetite was whetted. They quickly went from lotto to casino.
Big gov't claims to care for us, but in reality has our best interests in mind no more than Al Capone or Bugsy Siegel.
Don't gamble, then.
[problem happily solved]
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