[好急]The Lottery嘅中文版

Whenever I walk by the drug store in my neighborhood, or the 7-11 or the liquor store, I see a line of people waiting patiently to buy state lottery tickets. Many of them look poor, and many of them are members of a minority community.
These people are investors; they are investing their daily or weekly savings in the Maryland State Lottery, just the way other people invest their savings in the stock market. Like all investors, they are hoping their money will grow as time passes.

There is nothing unique about Maryland's lottery. In the U.S., government-run lotteries are now big business. Starting with New Hampshire in 1963, 37 states and the District of Columbia have begun their own lotteries in recent years. Each year these 38 governments turn a combined profit of $11 to $12 billion on their lotteries. This is $11 or $12 billion that the well-to-do and corporations do not have to pay in taxes because the poor have already paid it for them.[1] A Las Vegas slot machine pays back 90% of every dollar dropped into it, but a typical state lottery pays back less than 60% of every dollar it takes in.[2] Some states are now meeting nearly 10% of their annual budgets with their lottery profits.[1]

What does it matter if people with just a few dollars put their savings into the lottery? It matters a lot because it can mean the difference between being poor and not being poor. As many wealthy people know, if you start saving just a dollar a day when you are young, say at age 16, and invest it shrewdly you can be a multi-millionaire by age 65.


For comparison, let's look at the fortunes of the average person who invests one dollar each day in the Maryland State Lottery. The Lottery maintains a web site (http://sailor.lib.md.us/msla/- benefits.html) where we learn that the Lottery gives back in prizes 52.9 cents from each dollar it takes in Therefore, the law of averages says that anyone who invests one dollar in the lottery will win back an average of 52.9 cents. The longer you play the lottery, the more likely it becomes that you will win back 52.9 cents on each dollar you invest. Therefore, the average person investing a dollar each day ($365 per year) will win back 365 x 0.529 = $193.08 each year. The Lottery keeps the difference, which is $171.92, each year. Thus we can see that the Lottery pays its investors at a negative annual interest rate of 0.529-1 = -47 percent.

If a young person starting at age 16 invests one dollar each day in the Maryland state lottery, at age 65 that person's 50-year investment will have grown to a grand total of $401.60.

Invested in the stock market using a simple technique, one dollar a day turns into $1 million in 42 years and $3.5 million in 50 years. The same one-dollar-a-day invested in the Maryland State Lottery for 50 years turns into $400.

What has this got to do with environmental health? In the U.S., the two biggest causes of public health problems are intertwined: poverty and the racism that often gives rise to poverty. Poor people have much more illness and early death, compared to people with a decent job and income. (See REHW #584.) Members of minority groups have less access to health care than most people, and when they seek treatment the medical establishment gives them less aggressive, less successful care than it gives to whites. (See REHW #641.)

State governments work hard to make people think that gambling a dollar a day has no effect on their future -- except of course the long-shot possibility of a huge win. Our schools don't teach children about probabilities, so they have no idea how vanishingly small is the likelihood of "winning the lottery." Most of our schools also don't teach kids about the power of compound growth rates (for good and for ill). (See REHW #197 and #199.) As a result, the poor are investing in state lotteries and are subsidizing the rich to the tune of $11 or $12 billion each year.

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