According to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, lotteries took in $70.1 billion in sales in the 2014 fiscal year. That’s more than Americans in all 50 states spent on sports tickets, books, video games, movie tickets, and recorded music sales.
One should be careful when making this sort of comparison-- at least from the standpoint of the overall economy. The cost of "producing the lottery" is more or less fixed relative to its revenue, i.e. its marginal cost is free, but it's not necessarily free for the other good they're comparing it to. For consumers to increase the number of movie tickets they buy or books they buy, more theaters have to be built or books have to be printed. The cost of producing the extra consumption goods is relevant, precisely because there is nearly zero cost of producing the consumer good that is a lotto ticket.
In other words, money is changing hands (mainly from the poor people's hands into the government's and from there who knows), but resources are not being consumed like they would be if we were constructing new movie theaters all over town. That particular aspect of the lottery is actually praiseworthy and might be missed by a simple comparison of consumer spending on it vs "all these other forms of entertainment combined".
As I said elsewhere, it takes nothing more than a printer with ink and paper. No terminals, no coin-collectors, nothing else. We shouldn't antagonize a ruthlessly efficient method of revenue because people make bad decisions.
Whether it's killing a man or providing jobs to miners, the dynamite doesn't care.
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One should be careful when making this sort of comparison-- at least from the standpoint of the overall economy. The cost of "producing the lottery" is more or less fixed relative to its revenue, i.e. its marginal cost is free, but it's not necessarily free for the other good they're comparing it to. For consumers to increase the number of movie tickets they buy or books they buy, more theaters have to be built or books have to be printed. The cost of producing the extra consumption goods is relevant, precisely because there is nearly zero cost of producing the consumer good that is a lotto ticket.
In other words, money is changing hands (mainly from the poor people's hands into the government's and from there who knows), but resources are not being consumed like they would be if we were constructing new movie theaters all over town. That particular aspect of the lottery is actually praiseworthy and might be missed by a simple comparison of consumer spending on it vs "all these other forms of entertainment combined".
As I said elsewhere, it takes nothing more than a printer with ink and paper. No terminals, no coin-collectors, nothing else. We shouldn't antagonize a ruthlessly efficient method of revenue because people make bad decisions.
Whether it's killing a man or providing jobs to miners, the dynamite doesn't care.