State Lotteries and the Common Good

State Lotteries: Gambling With the Common Good

State governments have radically changed their policies towards gambling in the last 50 years, particularly with lotteries.
In 1960, no Americans lived in lottery states, but now 90% do.
Government actions convey values to citizens.
The reliance on lotteries may exploit problem gamblers, prey on the disadvantaged, and encourage superstition.
Lotteries, as alternatives to taxation, may undercut the development of civic virtues and social responsibility.

Gambling and Catholic Social Thought

The Roman Catholic tradition does not give a simple yes or no answer to the morality of gambling.
Some forms of gambling, like Russian roulette, are wrong because of the risk to life.
Cheating is wrong because it defrauds others.
The 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church identifies dangers of gambling passion but doesn't say it's always wrong.
Gambling becomes wrong when gamblers risk money needed for necessities.
Buying lottery tickets with grocery money is similar to buying other luxury items under similar circumstances.
The morality of playing the lottery depends on the intentions and financial resources of the purchaser.
Ethical questions arise about the government's response to gambling.
These questions involve complex judgments about serving the common good under particular circumstances.
Communities may adopt different policies about the legalization, regulation, or taxation of games of chance due to cultural and economic differences.
There is no official Catholic teaching on specific governmental policies regarding gambling.
Catholics must evaluate these policies by applying the principle of the government's responsibility to pursue the common good.
In America, state governments regulate and sponsor lotteries.
Governments use lotteries and sin taxes to raise money.
States do not create products like Wyoming Wine Coolers or Massachusetts Menthols, nor encourage drinking/smoking.
Lotteries require ongoing development of games and promotional strategies, plus administrative costs.
Ethical questions about lotteries in the U.S. are about government and its role in promoting the common good.
Is running a lottery an appropriate activity for government?
Do state lotteries discourage civic virtue by funding public enterprises with a tax on lottery players rather than all citizens?

The Role of Government

Establishing priorities is an important way state governments serve the common good.
Public servants must make difficult decisions about spending state revenues when resources are limited.
Given that government cannot do everything, the question is whether running a lottery is an appropriate use of public funds.
Much of the income from lotteries disappears into prizes, promotions, and administrative costs.
Most state governments now have a monopoly on a product that was illegal 50 years ago.
The question of state lotteries fits into the debate about the appropriate role for government.
Government should not harm or take advantage of the people it serves.
When citizens are encouraged to play the lottery, it raises the question of promoting or undermining their interests.
In any lottery, a few win only because most others lose.
State governments encourage people to risk money with the understanding that the wager will likely bring no direct return, and any success comes at the expense of others.
A state-sponsored lottery competes for money that citizens could use to reduce debts, build savings, support charities, or spend in community businesses.
Lottery losses are not evenly distributed; a small group of hard-core participants purchase most tickets.
Five percent of the players account for over half of the revenues.
When members of this group are problem gamblers, the results can be disastrous.
Some states allocate lottery proceeds to the treatment of problem gamblers.
Poorer people spend a higher percentage of their income on tickets than wealthier people.
Lottery participation decreases with education.
A successful state lottery derives a disproportionate share of its revenue from persons who are economically disadvantaged.
State governments are encouraging citizens to risk money, promoting a product attractive to those who have the least to lose.
Such exploitation undermines the covenant between a government and its citizens.

Lottery Lessons

The regressive burden on the disadvantaged is a strong ethical reason for rejecting state lotteries.
We should consider the messages that lottery promotion conveys.
If government educates through its policies, we should think about what a state-sponsored lottery teaches.
We would not accept a public school textbook that urged children to pursue easy money by relying on hunches.
We must ask whether state lottery promotions encourage a superstitious belief in lucky numbers.
Some lotteries are random, while others encourage participants to choose meaningful numbers.
The theological and philosophical nature of these concerns makes governmental sponsorship of such advertisements troubling.
State governments should not preach the good news of lucky numbers or exploit people’s superstitions, even as a byproduct of raising revenue.
What would we think if public service announcements tried to sell us a map to the end of the rainbow with the promise that a lucky few would find a pot of gold?
Reliance on the lottery is an issue of communal character.
How does a just community balance its budget?
How does state sponsorship of a lottery support or undermine the development of civic virtue?

Impediment to Civic Virtue

The Catholic ethical tradition assumes that human beings are social by nature.
Individuals and groups flourish only in relationship to one another.
Human communities require organization, and the emergence of institutions (including government) is a natural development.
It is a reflection of the necessary relationship between individual and communal welfare.
The Second Vatican Council emphasized the reciprocal character of personal and social growth.
Human beings develop their potential through social interaction.
All entities within society, from individuals and families to corporations and civic organizations, have a responsibility to serve the common good.
The common good creates the conditions necessary for personal and social development.
Part of our responsibility to the common good is financial, with individuals contributing goods and services, and government overseeing a just distribution of benefits and burdens, including taxes.
Responsibility to the common good is a right.
Persons have a right to contribute to the common welfare.
Society has a duty to enable them to participate in this way.
Those denied the chance to contribute to the common good are the victims of a serious injustice.
The chance to pay taxes as a benefit rather than a necessary evil.
The standard of living that a strong tax base can support is a reason for identifying contributions to the common good as benefits.
To understand why, consider Thomas Aquinas’s theory of virtues.
Aquinas (1225-1274) emphasized the development of and connection between the virtues.
Some virtues are gifts from God, while others grow through practice.
We become honest by telling the truth and generous by sharing our resources.
Through our actions, we shape our world and ourselves as persons with particular virtues and vices.
A defect in one area inevitably affects the person’s character as a whole.
A person cannot be truly good without behaving appropriately toward the common good.
Persons lacking in civic virtues are somehow deficient in the qualities that ground good moral character.
To be a good person and a bad citizen is a contradiction in terms.
Aquinas’s theory of virtue indicates why the right to participate in civic life, including the “right” to pay taxes, is so important.
The chance to participate is an opportunity to develop one’s civic virtues.
No one can become a good citizen without participating in the development of the common good.
To rob persons of this chance strangles a vital element of their character.
It hinders their efforts to become the persons that God is calling them to be.
states develop a new lottery system that appeals primarily to the affluent, does not foster compulsive gambling or superstition about numbers, flourishes without advertising, produces stable revenues without need for expansion, increases the profits of other businesses, encourages charitable donations, discourages illegal gambling, and avoids or even reverses all of the other negative consequences commonly mentioned by lottery detractors. Even under these ideal circumstances, the importance of civic participation questions the wisdom of recourse to lotteries as a regular fundraising method
Lotteries circumvent the process by which individuals can develop civic virtues by contributing directly to the common good.
A governmental request to support the community with taxes acknowledges that the welfare of the community is each person’s concern.
Like a summons for jury duty and the ballot box, a tax bill serves as a physical reminder of the moral connection that links all human beings.
Contributions to the common good are obligations that we owe to our fellow citizens as a matter of justice.
Fulfilling these obligations helps us not only to improve our society but also to improve ourselves.
Serving the common good can foster civic virtues.
Social beings require civic virtues if they are to become good persons.
Character and common good thus remain inextricably intertwined.

The Future of State Lotteries

A primary attraction of state lotteries is that they provide revenue without raising taxes.
Given the budget crises facing many local governments and the current tax-increase antipathy, it is hard to imagine that our lottery states will abandon their sponsorship of gambling in the near future.
How a community raises the money to pay its bills is morally significant.
If the projects that the lottery supports are essential to the common good, citizens deserve the chance to take responsibility for their community’s welfare by funding them directly.
If they are not essential, then the risks associated with the lottery outweigh the benefits of whatever luxuries it provides.
Giving up the proceeds of a lottery represents a risk for a state government.
But this risk—a gamble on civic virtue—respects the capacity of the community to recognize and embrace its responsibility for the common good.
It is an opportunity for growth in civic virtue with the potential to benefit individuals and society as a whole.
Christian love requires the virtues of citizenship.