Tag Archives: Lottery

NC Lottery: Gambling IN Our Children’s Future…

Usually politicians will attempt to sell a policy by claiming “if not adopted we’re gambling with our children’s future.”

The corrosive affects of NC’s lottery continue to spread, as demonstrated by this report in today’s N&O:

In August and September, teens under age 18 were paired with state agents and made visits to 348 lottery sales outlets across North Carolina.

At each store, the minor tried to purchase a $1 scratch-off ticket — in violation of state law, which prohibits sales of lottery games to anyone under 18. They were successful in making the purchase 98 times, or in more than one of every four attempts.

With the escalating barrage of NC lottery advertising, including the plan to pimp Christmas, is it any wonder our kids are falling prey to the “money for nothing” ethic?

We were promised that our lottery commission had learned from the mistakes made in other States. We even brought in a heavy hitter with plenty of experience to avoid the common pitfalls.

Heck, you’d think with the stench of our corrupt short-tenured former NC lottery commissioner Geddings still lingering, the commission would be more than proactive in maintaining high ethical standards:

The state lottery commission this month adopted for the first time a policy on sales to minors. It put in place a three strikes process.

THIS MONTH! What a predicable load of manure the lottery is turning out to be…

Yep, the lottery is turning out to be quite Educational as gambling now becomes a part of our children’s future.

NC Lottery: Powerball is powerless…

11PM local news:

  • WTVD 11 leads with today’s Powerball snafu problems.
  • WRAL 5, after leading with nearly 4 minutes of ‘Canes news, covered the glitch.
  • NBC17, bless their hearts, led with about 5 minutes of ‘Canes game review and didn’t make it to the State’s newest con-game until 6 stories in .

NBC17 also deserves kudos for being the only station to mention the extremely long odds, 1 in 146 million, of winning the ‘ball.

WTVD was a bit breathless in their coverage – the news guy excitedly telling us “we’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s drawing”.

WRAL played up the “inconvenience” people had waiting to squander their bucks.

I’m going to give WRAL a small break because they did a nice piece  on the expected correlation between counties with high unemployment and high ticket sales.

Wilson County has the fourth highest unemployment rate in the state and often ranks No. 1 in ticket sales per capita. Nine other North Carolina counties selling the most tickets per adult have unemployment rates above the state’s average.

“It is not unexpected,” said state Sen. Janet Cowell. “I think that is what other states that have lotteries have seen.” Cowell explained that is part of why she opposed the lottery all along.”It really is a regressive tax, essentially, that really impacts lower income communities, not higher income communities,” she said.

“I don’t think that has any conflict with us,” said Wilson County’s Employment Security Commission manager, Terri Williams. “We’re here to help them find work and to help them with unemployment until they can find work.”Williams believes continued fallout from several plant layoffs and seasonal tobacco cuts are more to blame, but admits, “Of course, we hate to see the poor spending money on lottery tickets.”

Yep, so today’s computer snafu isn’t the only glitch we’ve seen in the system.