30 Days - Day 23

Start 'em Young.

I was at my local shop yesterday. I try and buy as much as I can there, fruits, meats.

They have a thriving business in the vices: cigarettes, booze, tickets.

Tickets: they're the tax on the poor kind. Instant play. Instant win. Weekly lottery. It seems there is no end to the variety. I don't condemn anyone for playing them, but it can be another addiction like alcohol or drugs.

I'd say in Newfoundland this kind of instant gambling is completely out of control with the full blessing of government who greedily reap their taxes commissions. Poor people hoping for that sudden boost out of poverty or just the adrenalin surge before the ticket gets burst open or the teevee draw for a new millionaire takes place.

This is boosted in no small way by the out of control local "grand in your hand" draws (collect $2,000, give $1,000 to the winner at $10 a ticket) and bingo nights. Most of these fund the impoverished (ahem) RC church. Generations of residents dinged over and over again for church upkeep with excesses syphoned off to Rome.

This addiction has never affected me. I don't say this smugly. I'm addicted enough, thanks! Even casinos, etc. have no appeal to me whatsoever. I calculate the odds and over a lifetime it could be millions of dollars spent if you had invested and reinvested your outlay in the stock market or GICs..

I've seen out of control gambling lead many all the way down to homelessness and/or suicide - the same end results as other addictions.

I said to one woman, on welfare, who spends $200 weekly on these tickets.

"You know if you saved that up you'd have over $10,000 at the end of the year in your pocket?"

She looked at me in surprise.

"But that would be no fun!" she said seriously.

I mean, I have to bite my tongue before I ask her what kind of fun, exactly, is she having throwing her money down the toilet?

And then yesterday I see an 8 year old girl handing in her tickets and winning $10 and her mother, behind her, says:

"Now you're on a roll, lovie, buy more tickets!"
"But I want candies, I want to spend the money on candies!"
"Ah, don't be foolish. You could buy a 1,000 candies when you win big!"

I'll let you work out what happened.

And sweet jaysus, 8 years old!

Tax on the Poor

I've no idea about other countries, but here in Canada this whole lottery business is completely out of control, both provincially and federally.

I am astonished that people buy these tickets and call it "fun". You might as well flush your hard-earned dollars down the toilet. I've seen friends throw a couple of fifties across the counter and get into a frenzy as they open the instant wins and carefully stow the "draw later" tickets away. I see them whoop to heaven when they win $50 and roll their eyes when I tell them they've spent $20/week for the last ten years to attain this huge prize. $5,200 to win $50! My logical mind makes me a huge spoilsport, right?

What would you do with all those millions if you won? I ask them curiously.

They would scatter it about on stuff for themselves, stuff for their kids. It's all about the stuff, you see.

There have been many protests here about these government run cash cows. No one can get a fix on the enormous profits they engender and on where it is spent. And of course powerful lobbies from the private sector are loud in their promotions of this type of "harmless" fun.

It is gambling of course, but no one wants to call it that. Gambling with odds that would not be allowed in Vegas or in our Native run casinos.

Gambling that targets the poorest of us with the big ads and ecstatic winners on TV. It is so easy to win and get that house and the 60" screen and the 100' swimming pool.

But the reality is far, far different for if you do win the odds are you're going to lose it all anyway as these did.

And the greatest sales of lottery ticket co-incide with the monthly welfare and pension cheque cashing.

The government distributes as winnings 48% of the total sales of these tickets and the other 52%? "Administration,"that handy catch-all and oh, erm, hospitals and, let's see, sports programmes.

And no one has won the following jackpot so it will be up to $95 million next week. Which means, oh, $1,340,000,000 kept by the government for administration, maybe as a downpayment on the billion dollar G20 summit. Notice how in these kinds of reports they invariably tell you about winners? CBC, the reporting agency, is government-run and could be a beneficiary of all this lottery largesse.

The $50 million Lotto Max jackpot is still up for grabs after no winning ticket was drawn Friday night for the grand prize.

However 15 Maxmillion prizes of $1 million each were won by ticket buyers in British Columbia, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

With no big winner for a second straight week, the June 18 draw will offer prizes worth a record $95 million, including the $50 million jackpot and 45 prizes of $1 million.

The number of Maxmillions will include those not won in the June 11 draw in addition to those generated from new sales for next Friday's draw.

In February, two tickets split a $50 million Lotto Max draw — one in Quebec and the other in British Columbia. And Last November, Marie Fontaine of Pine Falls, Man., pocketed a $50 million Lotto Max prize.

Read more here.