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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThanks for a great article, Mr. Kim [Despite Powerball mania, lottery is lousy investment, Aug. 29]. To say that a legitimate function of government is to prey on any weakness of the governed for the government’s gain is reprehensible, but that’s what lotteries do.
Some will contend that Indiana finally “got with it” when it amended the Indiana Constitution to allow state-run lotteries, but the financial damage done to Hoosiers least able to afford it can’t be measured.
An example of factors that would be difficult to compute: How many men are behind in their child support because they have been wasting their money on lottery tickets through the years? Everything is supposed to be “for the children” nowadays, but how does their absentee father supporting a state-run lottery at the expense of his dependent children figure into that?
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Brian Palma
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