I don't think that attempts by some (not necessarily here) to label the lottery as a regressive tax or being unfair to the poor are true. It's 100% voluntary, unlike sales taxes, for example, which are involuntary and truly regressive. It's like adding $3 to your taxes for the Presidential campaign fund on your tax form -- you do it because you want to, not because you have to.

It sends the message that if you are poor, you have to be protected from spending your money as you see fit. We won't protect you from outrageous health insurance premiums or the inability to find affordable housing in a neighborhood safe to raise a child or the skyrocketing costs of higher education, but, by God, we'd better protect you from spending $1 on a lottery ticket while you are buying that $4.50 pack of addiction that we won't help you kick the habit from.

Yes, desperate and poor people gamble. So do middle class and rich people, except we call them "investments."

I agree that in most (all?) places, lotteries don't truly help education or whichever fund they are supposed to aid, because politicians raid the regular budget in exchange for the money the lottery is expected to bring in. Underfunding a school system in the expectation that gambling winnings will make up the difference is NOT what voters who have passed lottery referendums to support education really had in mind, sez I.

It is, simply, a revenue generator for the state. All else is whitewash.