The lottery and you: a true/false quiz
Maids and ditch-diggers always seem to win
A: False. Consider already-affluent Jack Whitaker of West
Virginia, who won a $314.9 million Powerball jackpot -- still
the largest single U.S. lottery payoff -- on Christmas Day 2002.
In fact, lottery officials in several states say big jackpots
tend to bring out a more affluent crowd.
But studies show that the heaviest lottery players -- the 20% of
players who contribute 82% of lottery revenue --
disproportionately are low-income, minority men who have less
than a college education. That has fueled a vociferous
anti-lottery movement. “It really is government undercutting
what government’s role should be,” which is encouraging people
in financial straits to be responsible with their money, says
Tom Grey of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling.
About one-half of American adults spend $45 billion annually on
some 35,000 lottery games in 40 states, plus the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's not news
when someone earning $7 an hour scrubbing toilets parts with a
buck for a ticket -- but it's news if she wins.
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