Gambling and playing lottery is a method to take a risk and get essentially free money by doing nothing, other than taking the risk. Personally I think anything like this gambling related should be taxed up the wazoo. Definitely more than 50%. And that taxed amount should ideally go back to fund things like schools and stuff good for everyone.

Final note, if you ain't happy with 400M free money, you cray cray.

[–] coriza@lemmy.world 17 points 6 days ago (2 children)

In my country the lottery is taxed at the collection step, so the money divided and advertised is already after taxes. I think that makes more sense, you collect the money and the law specifically distributes this taxed money for specific budgets and the winnings advertised are the real one.

[–] seaplant@slrpnk.net 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The US effectively does both: the lotteries are run by the states and total prizes are much less than total ticket sales, generating net revenue for the state. Winnings are taxed like other income, meaning there are federal taxes and in many states state taxes.

[–] Cataphract@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The whole system gets even worse when you look at it. They prop it up as an "education lottery", "This will help finance our schools!" In reality, they supplement education funding. I.E. they remove 2mil from state funding and put 2 mil in from the jackpot. They will continue lowering educational spending and use the assets in other areas they want.

When the lottery legislation was first written, it stated, “The net revenues generated by the lottery shall not supplant revenues already expended or projected to be expended for those public purposes, and lottery net revenues shall supplement rather than be used as substitute funds for the total amount of money allocated for those public purposes.” However, this sentence was removed right before voting, opening the door for legislators to use lottery revenues as a replacement for state funding.

The 2005 legislation stated lottery proceeds for education purposes would be allocated by the State Lottery Commission in the following manner: 50% for class-size reductions, 40% for school construction, and 10% for college scholarships. In 2013, lawmakers passed legislation giving themselves the power to allocate lottery proceeds for any education purposes, not just class-size reductions, school construction, and college scholarships.

In FY 2018, the majority of NC Education Lottery funding (57%) went to non-instructional support personnel, with 19% going to school construction, 12% to pre-kindergarten, 6% LEA transportation, 4% to need-based college scholarships, and 2% to UNC need-based aid. (link)

non-instructional support personnel, you know the over inflated administration that plagues education, now being supported by a lottery. Like most legislation, it started as something grand but slowly got mutilated till it's a net-negative effect.

[–] EffortlessEffluvium@lemm.ee 2 points 5 days ago

I’m in NC. The radio pundits during the runup to the General Assembly’s lottery vote were about the potential revenues being around $300 million. Further discussion was how that was the total budget for Forsyth County (Winston-Salem vicinity) schools. NC has 100 counties, some smaller, some larger, and for the GA to vote for it was viewed by the pundits as a really dumb thing.

The very thing of it becoming a replacement rather than a supplement to the school budgets was obvious to anyone who knows American (and especially NC) politics.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

It's even more insane when you realize that lottery tickets are basically double taxing, because you already pay the sales tax when you purchase the ticket so not only are you getting taxed on the purchase of the ticket but you're also getting taxed on the winnings, so essentially they're getting double the tax per ticket