
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 29, 1990                   TAG: 9006290696
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FLOGGING THE LOTTERY TO KEEP IT ALIVE

SALES OF Virginia lottery tickets haven't improved as much in fiscal 1990 as was hoped, but they'll rise sharply next year. That's the prediction of lottery officials. Their original forecast for this year was far too optimistic, so one may wonder just how much stock to put in another rosy scenario.

By way of excuse, Kenneth Thorson, lottery director, said this week that public interest in state lotteries often lags during the second year of operations.

Of course, such background knowledge was available when officials were saying that sales would rise from the first year's $406 million to $558 million this fiscal year. Instead, sales will total around $460 million. That's a 12 percent increase, compared with the 36 percent that had been predicted.

Things will be much better, says Thorson, in the fiscal year that begins Saturday. Sales will be up, he believes, by almost 22 percent (to $560 million) because of increased sales in the daily games and the weekly Lotto drawings.

And how will officials help the lottery bounce back? By increased advertising. You could always get good odds on that happening. The track record in other states - the same record that Thorson used to explain the growth lag in the second year - shows that promotion must steadily be stepped up to sustain interest and boost sales.

It's a development that could be more confidently predicted than the levels of income. And it means that the commonwealth must spend more of the lottery's income to keep more money coming in - that the state must use this money to encourage more of its citizens to gamble, and to gamble more.

That's not an activity of which Virginia can be especially proud. Lottery officials defend the games by saying they're fun for the public. But if the games don't pull in enough cash for the state, they're not doing their job. What happens, asked board member Harris Miller this week, if there's an economic slowdown? Lottery tickets, he pointed out, are a discretionary purchase.

Thorson was reassuring: Data from other states show that lottery sales go up during hard economic times. "People cancel buying the televisions, the automobiles, the appliances," he said. "They tend to spend more on lottery tickets."

Right: You buy TV sets, cars and refrigerators with dollar bills and Abe Lincolns. The truth is that if people defer discretionary purchases during hard times, they're more likely to be purchases of the little things so important to low-income families. Baby needs new shoes, so you roll the dice or buy the lottery ticket.

It's not only people at the lower end of the economic ladder who dream of getting a bundle from the lottery. During his gubernatorial campaign, Douglas Wilder promised a lot of interest groups a cut from the proceeds. That's easy to do; like the gambler, politicians can look on lottery money as a free good.

Indeed, the General Assembly already is using some of the lottery take for general expenses, contrary to the plan that it would be devoted exclusively to certain capital improvements.

The commonwealth ought to return to that plan. Lottery income may be nice to have, but it should not be treated as a fiscal mainstay or a funding source for pork barrel. As the past week's events indicate, the amount of funds the state can get from it will always be a gamble.

by CNB