Presented Evidence the Mass. Lottery Produces Inequality, Treasurer Grossman Urged to Drop $30 Scratch Ticket

I am emailing you a letter we sent Massachusetts State Treasurer Steve Grossman earlier today. It was a response to an announcement by The Massachusetts Lottery, a state agency he chairs, that they will be sponsoring and promoting a $30 scratch off ticket to citizens next month. You can read our letter at the bottom of this email or you can read it at this link. Think about that... a $30 scratch off ticket. While many state leaders say they are committed to fighting unfairness and inequality (Grossman's own campaign for governor has made this goal its central theme,) their policy of sponsoring the lottery and casinos actually worsens the very unfairness and inequality that they decry. Often described as “predatory gambling,” government sponsorship of lotteries and casinos is based on cheating and exploiting citizens through the deceitful and highly addictive forms of gambling they promote. On just lotteries alone, a mountainous pile of independent evidence exists showing that state lotteries exploit less educated and lower-income citizens. There’s simply no disagreement about it. Please express your views on this proposal through your social and email networks with your friends, your co-workers, your region's media and your legislators. Tell them all citizens have a right to fairness and equality of opportunity and $30 scratch tickets sponsored by our own government erode that right. You have the power to do something tangible and real right now to help improve your community by ending the Massachusetts Lottery’s new $30 scratch off. It also helps to enhance our message this fall for the casino repeal referendum because it underscores that any serious effort to address unfairness and inequality in Massachusetts must include phasing out the extreme forms of predatory gambling sponsored and promoted by state government, best typified by casinos but includes indefensible practices like $30 scratch tickets. If you support our mission and work, please participate by contributing $10 or more today to help sustain it. With gratitude, Les ____________ Les Bernal National Director Stop Predatory Gambling "Ending the unfairness and inequality produced by government sponsorship of casinos and lotteries." (To view all the hyperlinks to the supporting evidence about the unfairness and inequality produced by lotteries, please click the PDF of the letter here) March 26, 2014 State Treasurer Steve Grossman Massachusetts State House, Room 227 Boston, MA 02133 Dear Treasurer Grossman: In light of yesterday’s stunning announcement that the Massachusetts Lottery will sponsor and promote a $30 instant scratch ticket to its citizens, an act intensifying the massive unfairness and inequality already produced by the Lottery, I am writing to call on you to use your authority as Chair of the Lottery Commission to take immediate action to abort the ticket’s rollout. While many state leaders say they are committed to fighting unfairness and inequality (your own campaign for governor has made this goal its central theme,) their policy of sponsoring the lottery actually worsens the very unfairness and inequality that they decry. Often described as “predatory gambling,” government sponsorship of lotteries is based on cheating and exploiting citizens through the deceitful and highly addictive forms of gambling it promotes. Most indefensibly of all, a mountainous pile of independent evidence confirms that government’s public policy of promoting lotteries is contributing to the unfairness and inequality in our nation. It is harming health, draining wealth from people in the lower ranks of the income distribution, and contributing to economic inequality. One of the nation’s most respected lottery researchers, Duke University professor Charles Clotfelter has said, “It’s one of the easiest things to measure. The lottery is something for poorly educated and lower-income people.” Syracuse University Professor Ross Rubenstein, another top expert on lotteries, has said there is no debate among scholars on whether lotteries prey on the poor: “There’s simply no disagreement about it.” Difficult economic times provide the Lottery the chance to further intensify its profit-making from the state’s desperate poor because citizens play the lottery even more when times are tough, according to a study by Yale’s Emily Haisley in The Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Cornell University economist David Just and his colleagues found "a strong and positive relationship" between lottery ticket sales and poverty rates after examining data from 39 states over 10 years: "Finding that desperation motivates lottery consumption by the poor has some troubling policy implications." Those in poverty or near poverty not only are more likely to play the lottery than those with greater means, they also spend a larger percent of their money on average on these games of chance. Lottery officials try to minimize the fact by saying this may not be such a bad thing if the poor basically play the lottery as a cheap form of entertainment. Not so, says Cornell’s Just and his fellow researchers who concluded: "Rather than seeking fun and exciting entertainment, the poor appear to play because of an ill-conceived belief that participation will improve their financial well-being. However, when we look for the telltale signs of entertainment behavior, they are absent. We don't see evidence that changes in the availability or price of other entertainment, movies for example, lead to changes in lotto purchases. Rather, we find there are big jumps in lottery purchases when the poverty rate increases, when unemployment increases, or when people enroll on welfare. Lottery playing among the poor is a Hail Mary investment strategy — a small ray of hope among the hopeless. But this false hope is, by design, an attempt to lure the emotional decision-maker.” It is also by design that the Lottery is manipulating the payout rate on lottery tickets to get the poor to play even more. As you likely learned since you have been chairing the Lottery Commission, a higher payout rate for scratch tickets usually results in getting citizens to wager and lose even more. People often take the money they win and they plough it right back in to buying more lottery tickets. By offering such a high payout rate like 80% for a $30 scratch off, what you are really doing is juicing the ticket. It is the lottery equivalent of how tobacco companies used additives to make cigarettes more addictive to the user. It is these out-of-control users that are the lifeblood of the Massachusetts Lottery: The New York Times revealed lotteries extract 80 percent or more of its profits from 10 percent of its players - money derived from lottery outlets which are heavily concentrated in lower income areas. In an attempt to counter this reality, government lotteries like in Massachusetts have spent large sums of public dollars promoting the deception that they are doing a “social good,” convincing the mass media to present the merits of the lottery program as a great debate rather than as a failed policy in which evidence continues to multiply that lotteries are contributing to American inequality. But despite the Lottery’s willfully deceptive PR campaigns, the Massachusetts Lottery’s own survey data showed less than 1 out of 10 people agreed with the statement that “the Lottery improves the quality of life for the state’s citizens.” The only people who claim otherwise are the state lottery itself, the gambling-interest groups who support it and the political leaders who approve of the scheme. For these reasons, any serious effort to address unfairness and inequality in Massachusetts must include phasing out the extreme forms of predatory gambling sponsored and promoted by state government. You have the authority right now to do something tangible and real by ending the Massachusetts Lottery’s new $30 scratch off. I invite you to contact me for any additional information. Thank you. Sincerely, Les Bernal National Director Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation Quick Links An American Declaration on Government and Gambling Online Store SPG in the Media Take Action A Failed Government Policy Lies vs. Facts Background Reading Share Your Story Donate To The Mission