Mega Millions Lottery Tickets Megamillions Megamillion Mega Million Powerball Lottery Tickets Powerball Tickets and Powerball Online

Buy Mega Million Lottery Tickets

In the spring of 1987, I discovered a friend's secret by accident. His fiancé was moving to another state. The reason was that his gambling addiction was out of control. His advice to me was, ''You need to fight legalized gambling in Tennessee, or else you will have a lot more people addicted like me.''

With a legalized lottery, are we at greater risk for gambling addiction among Tennesseans? ''Absolutely without a doubt,'' says Dr. Valory Lorenze, executive director of the compulsive gambling center in Baltimore. ''It is indisputable! It would be naive and dishonest to say it will not!'' Dr. John Kindt of the University of Illinois reports that two-thirds to 90% of addicted gamblers begin because of the lottery.

The National Gambling Impact Study Commission (which had the harshest attacks against state lotteries and encouraged moratoriums on the expansion of lotteries) reports that while the number of problem and pathological gamblers tends to remain the same for a while, the availability of a state-owned lottery increases the prevalence of at-risk (new potential addicts) gambling by 80%. Dr. Durand Jacobs, expert on children and gambling addiction at California's Loma Linda University Medical School, traced the increase of children and youth gambling through the years. By the year 2000, 66% of our children and youth gambled, and he says it is caused primarily by the growth of state-run lotteries.

•  
• Check the numbers. An estimated 12% of lottery prizes go unclaimed, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association.