RALEIGH – Among the defects of putting North Carolina’s state government into the gambling business was it turned state officials into the fiscal equivalent of vultures. For the state lottery to produce more revenue, its operators must persuade more North Carolinians to become losers and suffer the consequences.
Desperation is a powerful motivator to gamble. That’s one reason why lotteries disproportionately attract play from lower-income groups. While a weakening economy can have the effect of reducing some kinds of gambling, as people take fewer trips to Vegas or spend less when they get there, state lotteries often see the opposite trend. Easy access to tickets combined with anxieties about job security and rising prices can lead the unwary to risk their scarce cash in the hope, however forlorn, of striking it back.
This is surely one dynamic in play right now, as government lotteries in North Carolina and other states enjoy an increase in revenue. The Greensboro News & Record reports that the North Carolina lottery is generating 25 percent more money than it did this time last year. Another factor, the one that lottery officials would prefer we dwell on, is that the state upped the payouts in order to make North Carolina’s games more competitive with those of other states. That means, by the way, that while our government is having more success suckering people to play this year than last, the government’s net has not risen proportionately.
As the Easley administration prepares to depart the scene in a few months, it’s worth noting that the state lottery will inevitably be the most-significant achievement of the governor’s two terms in office. It is a squalid, disreputable achievement, but an achievement nonetheless if viewed narrowly as something that Easley promised to do as a candidate and then accomplished as a governor. That it was accomplished by violating legislative rules and, arguably, the state constitution – and in the process helping to bring down House Speaker Jim Black in a bribery scandal – will also be part of Easley’s legacy.
Do he and his supporters feel good about that? When they read that lottery sales are up at a time when people are increasingly worried about their economic futures, does it trigger any feelings of disquiet or regret? Wouldn’t Easley rather have been remembered as a governor who enacted fundamental education reforms, or revamped the state’s outmoded transportation system, or restructured state government to bring its costs in line with those of more-successful competitors such as Virginia, Texas, and Florida?
Well, he won’t be. Instead, Mike Easley will be remember as the guy who shoved a government-run lottery through a dubious General Assembly, traveled a lot on the public dime, and then left office as one of the nation’s least-popular governors.
Yeah, I know that sounds a bit crabby and less-than-generous. But I continue to resent the fact that, thanks to Easley, I have to explain to my sons every now and then that despite the message they see on television, from their own state government, it is wrong and foolish to risk your money betting on the numbers. I wonder what lottery officials teach their own children.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.