People Earning Less Than $13,000 spend 9% Of Income On?

Food? Housing? Transportation?

Nope, the poorest among us spend 9% of their income on lottery tickets.

Is the lottery the most regressive of all taxes? And is it unethical that goverment uses lotteries to raise funds when the poor and stupid are paying the bills?

But they won't let us play poker online even though there is a far better chance of winning than with the stupid lottery.

Lottery, 50% goverment take right off the top. Worst than the tax on billionaires, gasoline or vodka.

Isn't it about time for you to start worrying about the Egyptians again? ... Or did a new ball roll across the carpet?

Actually, the Feds typically take 25% of any winnings... The state/locality get 2-3%... The store that sells the ticket gets 1% (usually up to a maximum of $100,000)...

And pray tell, how many (or what percentage) of the total tickets sold represent those making less than $13,000/year? Saying that "people earning less than $13,000/year spend 9% of their income" on it is a rather irrelevant number unless you put it in context. I wonder what percentage of their income they spend on cigarettes?.... Beer?... Guns?.... (Surely you wouldn't deny them their Second Amendment rights?)... Last I heard, lottery tickets, cigarettes, beer, guns, were all legal to purchase. So, what exactly is your problem?... Are you now going to presume to police other people's budget choices?

Personally, I think some of the righties on here spend waaaaay too much on guns, ammo, survival rations, and survivalist gear... But that's not my decision to make....

FredHayek wrote: Lottery, 50% goverment take right off the top. Worst than the tax on billionaires, gasoline or vodka.

People dumb enough to play lottery deserve to get the big tax if they actually win. When I first saw the topic, my was cigarettes.

50% of the ticket price goes to the state. When I am in Vegas they only want 10% per sports bet. If you are happy with your government doing this to the poorest among us continue to support state lotteries.

Since when did somebody tap you on the head and appoint you the budget-monitor for what other people spend their money on?

I think we should ban all forms of tobacco... That will save them even more money. If you are happy with your government allowing the poorest among us to pollute their lungs, pollute the air around others with their second-hand smoke, add to their medical problems, and spend even more of their money on cigarettes than lottery tickets, then continue to support cigarette sales....

Good point about tobacco. Once again the government makes more money off a pack of smokes than RJ Reynolds. Noting like profiting off addictive personalities.

Smokers in New York State earning less than $30,000 a year spent spent 25% of their income on cigarettes, according to a new study .

If you want to worry about something today, (other than the Egyptians, and lotto-ticket buyers, worry about the people that spend 25% of their income on killing themselves with cigarettes....

Oh, and the Federal tax is $1.01/pack...But depending on the state tax, that can be overshadowed by state and local taxes...(New York is up to about $4.35 on top of the Federal tax...)

In 1794, secretary of the treasury Alexander Hamilton introduced the first ever federal excise tax on tobacco products

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_ ... ted_States

...Which is STILL none of your friggin' business....

Next outrage-of-the-day....?

Seems to me given the demographics of who pays for those tickets that the portion of the proceeds the government collects should go for financing entitlements. At least the folks would get some benefit from throwing away their cash.