DATE: Monday, June 16, 1997                 TAG: 9706140009

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: Ann Sjoerdsma 

                                            LENGTH:   86 lines

LOTTERY ODDS A TAXING PROPOSITION FOR THE TRUE GAMESTER

Lotteries are for losers.

Sounds cold, doesn't it? Saying that Virginia, one of 37 states that operate lotteries, is for lovers and losers. But think about it. If lotteries were for winners, they wouldn't exist. Only losers can ante up the mega-millions of dollars that states count on. Many, many losers. Statistically determined losers.

Being a sporting person, a game player, and one who likes to win by skill, I'm bothered by that. Lottery odds are so lousy, they're laughable. One in 1,000 for a Pick 3? Come on. A roulette wheel gives you one in 37.

Again this year North Carolina, weary of its residents running to Virginia to blow big bucks (about $85 million a year) on Lotto, The Big Game or the daily picks, is debating legislation to create its own lottery.

But Senate Bill 867 is unlikely to pass. Recognizing this, proponents, Democrats who are doing their darnedest to tout it as ``pro-education,'' are retreating to a statewide referendum.

``Pro-education.'' That's another thing that bothers me. Just exactly where do the mega-millions end up?

North Carolina's lottery bill devotes 25 percent of the proceeds, projected at $300 million, to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. It also proposes creating, from an estimated 50 percent of the take, a college scholarship program for ``A'' and ``B'' high school students. Sponsor Tony Rand, D-Fayetteville, who borrowed the scholarship idea from Georgia, wants ``to afford our best students with the promise of a free education past high school.''

I wonder how many former C-students' lottery taxes it would take to put all our bright, deserving kids through the UNC system. I wonder how many non-college graduates would vote for the lottery knowing that they're paying for tailgate parties at Chapel Hill.

In Virginia, which has had a lottery since 1988, all proceeds go into the commonwealth's ``general fund.'' The monies were earmarked for public education, K through 12, as of fiscal-year 1996, but try tracking them. The lottery folks don't bother.

In 1994, Virginia took in $854.9 million in bets, paid out $465.6 million in prizes and $84.5 million in ``administration,'' and cleared $304.7 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That's a whole lotta greenbacks.

If players viewed the lottery as the ``voluntary'' tax that it is rather than as a game, a sport, I'd be less bothered by exploitative odds and political smoke about education.

After all, lotteries had a long, somewhat laudable history in this nation before cheating, fraud and corruption led to their outlaw in 1896. (New Hampshire started the first modern one in 1964.) They funded the Jamestown settlement and built hundreds of churches and schools, including buildings at Harvard, Yale and William and Mary.

There's a public-spiritedness behind buying a raffle ticket to help pay for a new school gymnasium or another specific project. It's a donation to a good cause.

But the dollar-bet of today's lottery player has ``me, me, me'' written all over it, not ``for the children's education.'' Each player is gambling for personal profit, for a ticket to Easy Street. And each player is likely to be a loser.

Name another gambling ``house'' in the nation, besides the commonwealth of Virginia, where the take is 46 percent. Give up? Arizona (53 percent), California (53 percent), Colorado (62 percent), Connecticut (59 percent), Delaware (55 percent) and on down the state lottery line, according to the Census Bureau. North Carolina is proposing 50 percent. Highway robbery at the 7-Eleven.

Racetracks usually keep about 20 percent to 25 percent - an outrageous amount until you consider the lottery heist. In Las Vegas, the house takes 5 percent or less.

The difference? Privately owned Vegas casinos deal in volume, not greed; the states deal in volume and greed and justify the exploitation of the ``few'' with the alleged benefit of the many. I don't buy it. I think it's insulting. Even immoral.

Private casinos also want to keep their customers happy so they'll come back. States have a steady flow of get-rich-quick dreamers, who think they can beat mathematics with hunches and star charts, and their lotteries are the only ``game'' in town.

Personally, I stand to gain from a North Carolina lottery. I'll never buy a ticket, so others will pay the taxes that I might have paid. Which doesn't seem very sporting to me.

There's no beating the lottery. Of course, you can always buy two Lotto tickets. That'll double your chance of winning the jackpot.

Now it's up to two in 7 million. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma, an attorney, is an editorial columnist and book

editor for The Virginian-Pilot. She lives on the Outer Banks.

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