Christian Action League of North Carolina, Inc.

Lotteries are gambling and gambling is sin. Gambling is clearly opposed to the moral worldview of the Scriptures. The basic impulse behind gambling is covetousness — the mother of all sins. The apostle Paul warned, "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). God's Word treats this sin as one of the most hideous and destructive of all of Satan's tools. In fact, it goes so far as to say that a person who practices a lifestyle of covetousness cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:10). There is no substantive difference between buying a lottery ticket and hoping it has the winning numbers and betting on numbers at a roulette table.

Lotteries exploit the poor in society. Lotteries are more regressive than most other forms of gambling since individuals in lower income brackets spend proportionally more money on them than persons with higher incomes. In Georgia in zip codes with average household incomes below $20,000, the lottery sold $249 in lottery tickets per resident per year, while in zip codes with incomes over $40,000 per capita spending was only $97. No doubt, this is one of the reasons why lottery advertising targets specific socioeconomics groups. For instance, the Illinois lottery rented billboards in some of Chicago's most economically depressed neighborhoods with the slogan "This could be your ticket out."[2]

Lotteries are dependent upon compulsive gamblers. Duke University professors Clotfleter and Cook, in their book, Selling Hope, concluded that 10% of those who bet on the lottery are compulsive gamblers and account for 50% of the money wagered.[3] Of compulsive gamblers surveyed, 22% divorced because of gambling, 40% had lost or quit a job due to gambling, 49% stole from work to pay gambling debts, 63% had contemplated suicide, and 79% said they wanted to die.[4]

Lotteries do little to pay for public education. Lottery states spend less of their budgets on education than states without lotteries, about 50% for lottery states and 60% for non-lottery states. Often the states were earmarked less of their general funds for education as lottery funds were contributed. The result was that there was no actual increase in spending.[5] What is more, lotteries make it more difficult for public education systems to raise additional money. Ohio State Representative Marc Guthrie stated that by focusing on the contribution of lotteries to education the state "creates the perception in the eyes of the public that it provides more for education that it does...It causes citizens to respond negatively to local efforts to raise revenue."[6] In California in 1991, the lottery contributed a mere 2.59% of the revenue received by the state's elementary and secondary schools. This amounts to only 4 days of revenue.[7]

Lotteries compete with legitimate retail business. The lottery diverts dollars for goods and services, money normally spent on groceries, clothes, or a new car or refrigerator, to lottery tickets. Dr. Robert Goodman, author of The Luck Business, one of the most widely read books on gambling, comments, "If you increase the amount of money people are spending on gambling, you are decreasing their expenditures on other activities and putting their jobs at risk."[8] Many convenience stores believe that selling lottery tickets actually hurt their business. They mention such things as employee handling tickets and answering questions, as well as shoplifting and lost sales when lines chase away customers.[9]

Lotteries recruit people to gamble. People who would never gamble at a casino are drawn into regular and frequent gambling habits by the lottery because lottery gambling is so convenient. The real purpose of a lottery is to stimulate lottery sales; that is, the more money people spend on lottery tickets, the more money the state takes in. One of the purposes of government then becomes the creation of more gamblers. This radically changes the purpose of government, which is to protect the general welfare, to the role of a common bookie.

Lotteries Produce Various Forms of Crime. As one commentator has said, "a lottery is to gambling as marijuana is to drug use." The experience of other states demonstrates that once a lottery is adopted, other forms of gambling will soon follow — bringing increased social ills such as prostitution, domestic violence, child abuse, drugs and increased illegal gambling. "At least two-thirds of compulsive gamblers engage in criminal activity to finance their addiction, and between 75 and 86 percent of compulsive gamblers have committed a felony because of gambling."[10] Lotteries also create corruption in the government. In California a state senator pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges for taking a bribe in return for a vote related to a lottery contract.[11] In West Virginia a lottery director was convicted of fraud for his role in trying to ensure that a particular lottery company won the lottery contract.[12]

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