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Lottery as Gambling

Critics fear that America will become a nation of gamblers, with slot machines in every gas station, not only in Nevada, but all across the country.

The more alarmist critics envision a day when the Pentagon will no longer have to ask Congress, and through it, the people, whether they should invest in a new bomb or airplane.

They'll simply run a lottery or a series of football pools until they've collected the necessary funds. What this amounts to is an updated form of taxation without representation, according to those opposed to such practices.

Not only are contributors not consulted as to where their money will be spent, they are often not conscious of themselves as contributing to finance anything at all. They don't ask where all that money will be spent because they don't see all that money, only their little fifty-cent or two-dollar portion.

So far, lotteries and the like have not proved to be a particularly efficient means of taxing people. It costs ten times as much to collect a dollar through the lottery method as it does by straight taxation.

But most states have recently experienced a boom in lottery business, following the institution of so-called "instant games". The "instant" or daily lottery comes close, in many ways, to the numbers racket.

Part of the appeal in the street-numbers games is the fast action - a winner everyday, a new bet possible everyday. Though some might see this as just a chance to lose more, the confirmed numbers player looks upon it as more potential wins.

No state-run game has yet found a way to provide bettors with that other great advantage of the numbers: The freedom to bet whatever number strikes one's fancy, or feeds one's superstitions.

As they are presently set up, lotteries hand out numbers to bettors at random. What you see is what you get. And the cost of setting up a more 'personal' operation, a la the rackets, is probably prohibitive.

But you never know: if betting on Monday night football is a success, states may find it profitable to cut it further into the kind of business that has traditionally been handled by numbers runners and bookies.

In the end, gambling is not likely to replace traditional means of levying taxes, but it looks as though gambling revenues are here to stay as supplementary income for states and cities, perhaps even for the federal government.

The reason is not that gaming casinos and lotteries are easier or cheaper to run than tax-collecting bureaucracies - they're not; nor because the revenues generated are so enormous. The main reason, probably, is that the people just are not ready for this to happen.