Preying on the poor

State governments have become avid promoters of lotteries. The lotteries are a quick and lazy way to increase revenues. However, lotteries have preyed on the poor. The poor have been the most susceptible to the hope of quickly getting rich without much effort.

In a Boston Globe commission to study State Lotteries , a store owner observed that:
"The lottery is no good. It robs from the poor. It robs from my neighbors. People lose a lot
of money. The government has no business being involved."

In the same Boston Globe study:
"Then we learned that when the Social Security and welfare checks arrive, local residents line up outside the store and down the sidewalk hoping to parlay their meager subsistence into instant wealth."

The poor people are now responding eagerly to the false hope being held out by state governments throughout the nation: "Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy-laden and I will sell you lottery tickets. Take this bet upon you and learn of the huge jackpot. For the bet is easy and the burden is light. And it shall be given to some lucky citizen, millions upon millions, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over it shall be given to that lucky one."

And people everywhere gamble away their hope one Dollar at a time, thanks to the state.