North Carolina lottery is 'essentially a scam'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You can oppose the predatory scam of the state lotteries. Or you can be a reflexively anti-tax Republican and a disciple of Grover Norquist. But you cannot do both.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/02\/04\/north-carolina-lottery-is-essentially-a-scam\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Carolina lottery is 'essentially a scam'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You can oppose the predatory scam of the state lotteries. Or you can be a reflexively anti-tax Republican and a disciple of Grover Norquist. But you cannot do both.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/02\/04\/north-carolina-lottery-is-essentially-a-scam\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-02-04T16:22:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/files\/2013\/02\/ripoff-300x146.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/02\/04\/north-carolina-lottery-is-essentially-a-scam\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/02\/04\/north-carolina-lottery-is-essentially-a-scam\/\",\"name\":\"North Carolina lottery is 'essentially a scam'\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-02-04T16:22:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-02-04T16:22:34+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"You can oppose the predatory scam of the state lotteries. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"North Carolina lottery is 'essentially a scam'","description":"You can oppose the predatory scam of the state lotteries. Or you can be a reflexively anti-tax Republican and a disciple of Grover Norquist. 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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{"id":13545,"date":"2013-02-04T11:22:34","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T16:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=13545"},"modified":"2013-02-04T11:22:34","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T16:22:34","slug":"north-carolina-lottery-is-essentially-a-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/02\/04\/north-carolina-lottery-is-essentially-a-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"North Carolina lottery is ‘essentially a scam’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

North Carolina state legislators are considering a proposal to bar the sale of lottery tickets to people who qualify for welfare<\/a> or are in bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

This effort reeks of that weird, seething resentment of the poor that twists so much of American policy \u2014 reshaping it around the driving principle that we must, at all costs, make sure no tax dollars are ever spent in a way that would give any poor person, anywhere, even a single moment\u2019s pleasure. At best, the plan represents a heavy-handed, micro-meddling paternalism that treats the poor as a sub-citizen class subject to special rules and regulations, supposedly for their own good.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a>But I\u2019m also sympathetic to part of House Majority Leader Rep. Paul \u201cSkip\u201d Stam\u2019s argument here, because Stam is right about this much: State lotteries are a rip-off and they prey on the poor.<\/p>\n

Consider the most basic games: the Pick 3 or Pick 4 daily number games.<\/p>\n

What are the odds of winning the Pick 3? 1 in 1,000. Is the jackpot for a $1 bet $1,000 or greater? Not even close.<\/p>\n

What are the odds of winning the Pick 4? 1 in 10,000. Is the jackpot for a $1 bet $10,000 or greater? Not even close.<\/p>\n

These are lousy games. They\u2019re predatory games that stack the deck. You\u2019ve got much better odds at the slots or at the track.<\/p>\n

When Stam says games structured like that are \u201cessentially a scam,\u201d he\u2019s telling the truth.<\/p>\n

Stam is just leaving out part of that truth \u2014 that this scam is North Carolina\u2019s, and almost every states\u2019, response to his Republican party\u2019s decades-long war against adequate revenue through legitimate taxation.<\/p>\n

You can oppose the predatory scam of the state lotteries. Or you can be a reflexively anti-tax disciple of Grover Norquist. But you cannot do both.<\/p>\n

Stam also said that some of the North Carolina lottery advertising is \u201cjust fraudulent,\u201d according to the Raleigh News & Observer.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also true. State lottery advertising regularly violates the law governing the advertising of every other type of contest, raffle or sweepstakes. But state lotteries are, legally,\u00a0allowed to be<\/em> fraudulent. State lotteries are exempt from truth-in-advertising laws.<\/p>\n

Stam is a North Carolina Republican, and I\u2019m pretty sure there\u2019s not much that he and I would agree on politically. But if he introduced legislation to remove the lotteries\u2019 exemption from truth-in-advertising laws, I\u2019d back that effort 100 percent.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"