Lottery is a bad bet

Lottery is a bad bet

Viewed from almost any angle of the public interest, the proposal to create a state-run lottery for Virginia is a terrible idea.

The only justification held out by lottery supporters is that it would help the Commonwealth to recover the dollars spent by Virginians each year on lotteries in bordering states. However, the area where residents participate in games run by other states is so small — limited to Northern Virginia communities with easy access to the District of Columbia, Maryland or West Virginia — that the revenue recaptured would not even begin to justify the cost of the bureaucratic structure which must be created to run a state lottery.

In Virginia, it is impossible to duck the family, moral and economic issues involved. A lottery means gambling. That is anathema to a large percentage of the religious groups which are at the forefront of the opposition.

But moral questions aside, there are potential legal problems too. The very real concern of the state attorney general is that the lottery creates gambling and in many cases promotes, not discourages, illegal forms of gambling.

The plain fact is that a lottery gives many the opportunity to gamble for the first time, and most of those first-timers will be the poor.

A state-run lottery not only puts thfe official seal of approval on gambling, but the advertising which necessarily accompanies it encourages people to participate. (A compromise in the Virginia lottery bill forbids advertising to encourage playing, but lottery supporters have expressed hope that provision would soon be rescinded if the lottery is approved.)

Gambling run by the state also leaves it in an awkward position. The state is empowered to jfrotect its residents from fraudulent hucksters, yet the pitches used in lottery advertising emphasize the huge payoffs made to a few, while