The Louisiana State Lottery, founded in the 1860s, was among the first of its kind. It operated by mail and drew players from across the country, with a nickname—the Octopus—that reflected its wide reach and strong hold on politicians. Early on, the company obtained a state charter that prohibited other lotteries from forming. When the public clamored against this monopoly, the company enlisted as a spokesman the Confederate general Jubal Early, who offered a novel argument: if lotteries were so evil, it was better that there be only one of them. Congress felt differently, dissolving the Octopus in 1890. Its corruption left the public so wary that no state would touch a lottery again until the 1960s.
In the interim, an underground culture blossomed to cater to the public’s continuing hunger for the numbers game. These lotteries operated mostly in poor urban neighborhoods, and while illegal, they generally enjoyed the cooperation of law enforcement. “Established operators in the South Side and Harlem reached an understanding with authorities that included the voting power of their districts,” Sweeney writes. “When things were running smoothly between the policy kings, the police, and the politicians, signs hung in windows announcing the daily draws.”
The task Sweeney has set himself—explaining how this all came to be—has one formidable challenge: the legislation and lobbying, the taxes and state government budgets can make for rather dull reading. The result is that his exhaustive research is occasionally at odds with his storytelling. (The lottery business, he concedes, “is as much about negotiating the intricacies of state bylaws and access to those with control over contracts as it is about gambling and new technologies.”) Still, these foot-dragging passages are perpetrated in the service of a greater purpose: to bring into deep focus a single, familiar aspect of American culture, and to tell a story that most people, be they ticket scratchers or not, didn’t know was there.
State legislators have long known that the lottery is a slick slight-of-hand maneuver to trick low end wage earners into subsidizing basic needs, such as education, without having to raise the dreaded specter of increasing taxes on everyone else.
The argument that people would play the "numbers" with or without government sanction is specious at best. Try applying that logic to the drug war.
#1 Posted by dapajoe, CJR on Wed 25 Mar 2009 at 01:02 PM
I have an idea for making the lottery a true benefit to society: give out solar panels as a prize instead of cash.
With solar energy, the cost is almost all up front, in the purchase and installation of the panels. Once they're installed, it's all benefit. How many people are willing to pay thirty thousand bucks up front? Few. How many would be willing to buy a three-dollar scratch-off ticket for a chance to get the long-term benefit? Plenty! And even if you lose, you feel virtuous!
State and multi-state lotteries pay out hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That money could pay for enough solar panels to power thousands of homes.
#2 Posted by D. B., CJR on Thu 26 Mar 2009 at 12:34 PM