I hate the lottery. I hate people who think the lottery is great. I saw a commercial the other day talking about how great the Tennessee lottery is. About $39 million dollars have been raised to help "deserving" kids with college. That part is the only positive side of this thing. Unfortunately for the state of Tennessee, the rest of the lottery is total garbage.
First of all, one of the lies that people have bought into is that the lottery is good for the community. I guess the phrase "good for the community" means job security for police officers because if you've ever looked at states that have the lottery, the crime rate went up quite a bit after it was instituted. This is because of people who believe it or not are actually too cheap and lasy to buy lottery tickets mug the people who were just flat out stupid and bought them. The only plus side is that drug dealers who win no longer have to worry about money and can sell their drugs at a discounted price and can live off of the interest from their lottery winnings that they've placed in their savings account. After all I'm sure the community loves not being ripped off when they buy their illegal narcotics. I'm sure the hookers would be happy about that. See how everybody loses wins?
The second load of garbage is that the lottery benefits more people than it hurts. Where do you think all the lottery money comes from? It isn't stored in some magical lottery fund that's just given away to some lucky twit who just happened to use the right "system" for picking the right numbers. That reminds me, there is no such "system" that works. It works about as well as letting the stars and planets (giants clusters of gas, and floating dirt) help you pick stocks or horses to bet on (which sadly, some people actually do). It's stupid and it's a load of garbage. It doesn't work, you only got lucky nothing more. Anyways, this money comes from all the people that wasted their hard earned money on these tickets. And after giving away over $1 billion dollars over the past two (going on three) years, that's a lot of people who have flushed their money down the financial crapper. That's a lot of people who are too lazy to work for financial prosperity and wealth. How many people now have financial problems because the didn't know how to quit spending money gambling on stupid crap like Powerball and the like? Yes, the lottery does hurt more people than it helps.
The thing that people use to justify this new method of separating total idiots from their money is that scholarships are handed out to "deserving" kids for college. This is actually the only part that isn't total crap. Apparently the kids who get these scholarships actually do have to earn it by having a good GPA and go to college instead of skipping classes. I understand that some people need the help and that's fine. I might add the stipulation that if the family can afford to pay the tuition, they shouldn't get help from the lottery and the kid should earn a scholarship from the college (if it offers one, if not too bad). If the family needs financial help then thy should receive help if the kid has proven that they won't waste the money. I understand that if they do poorly in college they have to pay the money back. I can live with that. The thing that they don't mention though is that in essence these kids are using the money that people lost on losing lottery tickets. So basically you have a bunch of kids going to college because stupid people made bad financial decisions. I have a bit of an ethical problem with that but then again I have an ethical problem with gambling period. I have no sympathy for the dolts who tried to get rich without having to work but neither do I think it's right to give away the money they wasted as a scholarship.
The lottery rips off millions of people every day. The system operates off of enticing greedy people who have no sense of financial responsibility and exploits it for business. If it were any other business it would be called exploitation and the company would be sued but the moment it's advertised like a "game of chance", it's alright to rip people of by promising them an astronomically low chance of winning. Listen up people, the longer stuff like this goes on and more people are encouraged to waste money on get rich schemes, the more people will become lazy because there is no need to work if you can become rich overnight. Wealth is the result of working. If you want money for free then rob a bank or hope a rich relative dies and you happen to be the sole beneficiary because situations like that are the only way you can get rich overnight and those are the exceptions that prove the rule. If you don't want your money I'll take it off of your hands. Now get to work and quit wasting your money on this crap.
