Michael Swickard
Lotteries exist to make winners and losers. Governments cannot talk about fairness and income redistribution while they run lotteries.
This last week was pretty tough on 100 million Americans. The Mega Millions lottery jackpot reached a reported $640 million. Oh, my! Serious money and to get it all anyone had to do was buy one lottery ticket.
So there were many people who stood in long lines dreaming of what they would do with all of that money. While all it took was having the right ticket, some people wanted to increase their odds from a reported 176 million to one, odds that reflect all of the combinations of numbers possible.
Get this: Some people put a hundred dollars into the lottery, which reduced the lottery odds to a more manageable one in 1.7 million. Then, clutching the tickets, they dreamed of $640 million, which was just six numbers away from them. They started mentally shopping for stuff.
Note: The real payout number they would receive was smaller, since to take the lump sum payout one must divide the jackpot in half and then pay all applicable taxes. The effective jackpot was just over $200 million.
Still, that is serious money. But it is not $640 million, as some people repeated to each other in a frenzy. The media whipped up the interest and many Americans who never play the lottery felt compelled to stick some money into the pool. Good for them.
I think it is sweet of them to make some new American millionaires with their dollars. I really do. Our country needs more millionaires, and this method works well enough. It does show that math education is lacking in many people. Not because they wager a dollar, but because they had any anticipation of winning. I do not know this to be true, but I bet at least one American quit his/her job in anticipation of winning.
A voluntary tax
Know this: For some people, even that much money might not last a year, while for others they could change the world with that kind of money. So by last Friday night about 100 million people had placed $1.5 billion into the lottery. Many were breathlessly waiting for the word that they and only they had won the biggest lottery in American lottery history. They dreamed of what the money would do. All of those people who were rude to them, well, it was going to take five bucks to send them a postcard because they would move so far away.
And that kind of money would remove the high school name of “Fish face” from polite conversation. Lured by the dreams of having millions of dollars with only a small wager, 100 million people bought tickets for the lottery and 99.9 percent did not win. Curses! Who could have seen that coming?
The newspaper had stories last weekend of people who plaintively cried, “I really wanted that money.” Three tickets split the big prize and there were a handful of others who won enough money to feel it, but most of the 100 million were brokenhearted and sad and left with just dreams that soured. It caused people to return to a common theme in today’s society, fairness.
Is it really fair for one American to have more than another American? There are plenty of people who maintain that fairness requires everyone to have the same amount of “the good life.” But in this case some people were going to put millions upon millions in their bank and others won nothing. Where is the government when we need fairness in our society? Oh, that is right, they run the lotteries.
Much of our political dialog is about wealth redistribution and fairness in our society. How can we concurrently have a mechanism for wealth concentration taking from many and giving to a few? The government loves the money the wealth concentration with lotteries gives them.
I like the lottery because it is a voluntary tax. People stand in lines to pay it. But would they if fairness dictated that everyone got the same amount from buying a ticket? Doubtful. Lotteries exist to make winners and losers. Governments cannot talk about fairness and income redistribution while they run lotteries.
Everyone is free to buy those lottery tickets.
Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.