Lottery Hits the Jackpot
By Randy Hicks, President of Georgia Family Council

It looks like it's going to be a very Merry Christmas at the office of the Georgia Lottery this year.

According to reports, a whopping $3 million in bonuses will be disbursed among the 260 lottery employees, including a check for $236,500 to lottery president and CEO Margaret DeFrancisco. If you add that bonus to her $286,000 annual salary, she is pulling in almost four times what Georgia's highest ranking public official Governor Sunny Perdue will make this year.

There are many reasons the news doesn't sit well with me. There's something unsettling about the lottery, these bonuses and the role state government plays in all of this.

Government makes policies that are in many ways intended to point us toward what is good- things for which we should aim. Take for example laws that encourage civil behavior among citizens or promote quality education for kids. These point us toward actions and activity that make life better and benefit society. The laws say "this is good."

The problem with the lottery is that it puts our state government, which is constitutionally charged with preserving the wellbeing of Georgians, in the peculiar role of actively enticing us to spend our money foolishly in order for the state to profit from our losses. Put another way, it's playing the huckster. And there is no worse example of this than how it affects the poor.

A few years ago the Atlanta-Journal Constitution found that the areas where the lottery is played the most also benefit the least from the HOPE Scholarship, which is funded by the lottery. In fact, the 20 zip codes with the highest number of lottery players all had household incomes below the median income statewide. In the 20 zip codes with the most HOPE recipients, household incomes were 72 percent higher than those poorer zip codes. The higher income areas received two-and-a-half times as many scholarships.

The poor in Georgia are spending money that disproportionately benefits higher income families (whose children would probably go to college without access to HOPE). Somehow that sheds a different light on the hundreds of millions of dollars the lottery brought in for education last year. Does such redistribution of wealth sound like something the state of Georgia should be doing?

This is one reason why the enormous bonus checks handed out to lottery employees bothers me. It's bad enough that the poor are not benefiting as much from the lottery. It's even worse to find out that money from ticket sales is being used to make lottery executives richer. To borrow from some lawmakers' reaction, it's "insane" and "absolutely absurd."

Lottery president Margaret DeFrancisco defended the bonuses saying they aren't unlike compensation handed out by other corporations as incentive to keep employees motivated to increase profits. It's true the lottery must work hard to keep sales up, especially because of "jackpot fatigue" that sets in over time as players desire high and higher jackpots. Doing so requires more aggressive advertising and novel games to maintain sales.

But the lottery is not comparable to other corporate entities. It is a monopoly created by the General Assembly. Sadly, the lottery "benefits" from a fixed market of its own making- gambling addicts who purchase tickets compulsively.

No matter how you look at it, lottery employees don't work for just any corporation; they work for the state of Georgia. And they shouldn't get such huge bonuses, especially when the tab is disproportionately being paid by low-income families.

As I mentioned earlier, government policies point toward what is good. Unfortunately the lottery does not. The games appeal to behavior that should not be commended by the state. "Today could be the day" is the slogan declared in Georgia's lottery ads. It's an appeal to instant gratification and an approach to finances that rarely works in our favor. And, incidentally, it's not something we want the students who benefit from lottery revenue to take to heart.

The get-rich-quick message undermines the ethic of hard work, stewardship and saving that have long been the formula for financial stability in this country. Having the state of Georgia lure people to recklessly spend their money runs counter to the pur- pose and mission of government, especially at a time when personal saving in America is so low (below one percent) and many are feeling a financial crunch.

Now I'm sure some of you reading will disagree with my analysis of the lottery. You view it as harmless voluntary fun and simply a form of entertainment. And for many players it is. But the state-run lottery also means that Georgia is in the gambling business- and, as I've described, that's a role fraught with the peril.

There is one benefit from the lottery. It is a constant reminder about the value of saving, delayed gratification and a long-term perspective. Think about it the next time you're confronted by a neon lottery sign, or hear another one of those outlandish ads on the radio. I certainly know what it's like to feel financial pressure. It's likely most people reading this column have been or are there now, but we all know that hard work and discipline will always be the best solution for financial reward.

Of course if that doesn't work, you could just apply for a job at the Georgia Lottery.

Georgia Family Council is a non-profit organization that works to strengthen and defend the family in Georgia by equipping marriage advocates, shaping laws, preparing the next generation and influencing culture. For more information, go to www.georgiafamily.org, (770) 242-0001, stephen@gafam.org.