The Maine lottery is a scam and ought to be abolished.

Of course, the same could be said for the state Department of Health and Human Services, the National Football League, and all-natural cereals. Unfortunately, eliminating the lottery is about as likely as getting rid of those con jobs, so I guess we’re stuck with it.

The gaming operation does have some advantages over other swindles. Rather than draining the public coffers like DHHS, it actually makes money. Unlike the NFL, it doesn’t coddle criminals or cause concussions. And in comparison with that alleged breakfast food, it doesn’t taste like the underside of your grandmother’s living room furniture.

Nevertheless, a rip-off is a rip-off. Essentially, the state is generating revenue by running a sophisticated marketing operation designed to delude its citizens into believing – the law of averages to the contrary – that they’re one ticket away from becoming wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Perhaps we should do some serious thinking about why our government is involved in such misrepresentation. Unfortunately, what with the complicated mathematics and sticky moral questions involved, this column has never been a forum for serious thinking. But if somebody else wanted to do that sort of heavy lifting, I’m sure it would be appreciated.

Amazingly, someone else has. In a recent series of well-researched articles, the Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting discovered that the lottery preys upon the state’s poorest residents in a disproportionate fashion. This is good news for those of us who aren’t poor, since it means we’re shelling out less than our fair share for all those scratch tickets and Powerball bets.

The other good thing about the lottery is that it’s voluntary. If your vice of choice isn’t gambling, you can simply ignore the games in favor of prostitution, opioid addiction or “America’s Got Talent” competitions. But even with all those distractions, the lottery still generates $50 million in revenue for the state’s general fund each year. If you’ve got a bold new idea for filling that hole in the state budget, the lottery could be eliminated immediately. Keep in mind, though, that nobody in Augusta seems inclined to raise taxes or cut services by that amount, so any fundamental change is unlikely.

The real gripe politicians have with the lottery is not the largesse it bestows upon them, but the revelation in the center’s reports that because poor people play a lot of lotto, they sometimes actually win. Since 2010, welfare recipients have hit jackpots to the tune of at least $22.4 million in prizes, some of them as large as half-a-million bucks. The rules of chance predict that to have accomplished that, those folks on the dole must have bet hundreds of millions of dollars that they could otherwise have spent on pot, malt liquor or pay-per-view porn.

This has prompted all sorts of predictable spittle spewing from both liberals and conservatives. Democratic state Sen. Justin Alfond of Portland told the center, “State assistance is meant to help Mainers put food on the table, keep a roof over their heads, cover medical expenses and keep up with the bills – not to be spent on lottery tickets.” DHHS commissioner Mary Mayhew is quoted by the Associated Press as saying, “We would support any additional legislation to ensure tax dollars are used only for the truly needy and supporting their needs, not subsidizing gambling activities.”

Setting aside the fact that getting efficient service out of Mayhew’s department is a crapshoot – one that’s heavily subsidized with tax dollars – she and Alfond have a point. Sorta. Because what their populist soundbites ignore is that while welfare payments aren’t supposed to be used for gambling, there’s no way to prevent recipients of state aid from spending their own money on the lottery. Which is exactly what all that state-sponsored advertising, carefully crafted for maximum appeal to the financially deficient, is telling them to do. Nevertheless, there’s been a sudden spurt of knee-jerk legislation being introduced, all of it designed less to deal with the problem than to assuage public outrage.

Like the lottery, this is a scam. And like the lottery, it’s something we ought to be able to live without. Because there are some problems no law can fix.

You bet I’ll read emails sent to aldiamon@herniahill.net.

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