commentaries

I agree with this article in most ways. Average people whom fall into hundreds of millions of dollars are not prepared to be rich. There is a reason why the rich are use to it. They have fine advisors whom can help them. And they make solid investments so the new money will become old money. And that money will go from one generation to another. Average people will be preyed upon by their new friends. People whom they only knew from decades before. And there are so many sob stories that if they are not careful, the newly rich will no longer be rich. And the government is in the game of stealing from the poor. Most people know the vast difference from having a reasonable chance of winning and losing. Most people with money do not bother to waste their money. Keep your own money and keep your dreams. Reasonable dreams.

A homeless man just came forward about the Powerball jackpot from Arizona. He won the other part of the $588 million Powerball! He's a guy living on the streets trying to reunite with his family. A pretty touching story :) http://superofficialnews.com/arizonas-588-million-powerball-winner-comes-forward/

Remember that one time you saw a poor person being dragged into a place that sells Powerball tickets and forced to buy them? Yeah, me either. Enough with the retoric that it just sucks money out of the poor. If they decide to buy the tickets, its up to them, no one forced them to buy!!! Enough with the BS, I am so sick of it

Premise: Lottery = addictive, regressive taxation. Truth: absolutely. What a dirty shame on MN and other PowerBall "snakeoil salesman" states. My preferred local gas/repair station has never sold these decrepit enticements, and I laud Tom S., the owner, for that. On the other hand, his free caramel popcorn has me hooked...

When I was in high school in the '60s I learned Spanish. We also studied Mexico. They had a lottery back then. We learned that the Mexicans were so poor that the lottery was the only way to tax more money out of them. It worked because the people were convinced that winning the lottery was their only hope.

No one is forced to gamble. Everyone should know this is a regressive form of taxation, mostly against the poor but don't forget the gov't uses the tax code to stick it to rich people as well! (Misery loves company, right!) And then there are the Indian tribes who never used to pay federal taxes. Guess what, the gov't figured out that they could give them a few slot machines and now (alas) the IGRA (Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988)says they must pay federal taxes on their casino profits!!! What a sly way for the feds to tax even more poor people using the Indians as the middle man! People, wake up! I'm sure this NYT writer has never lobbied a legislator about the evils of gambling. That is the problem - everybody talks about it but they continue to let the gov't trample us down like a bunch of uneducated paupers...which, by the way, is the way many of us tend to act! The gov't methods of taxation have gone way beyond what was envisioned in the Constitution. People must wake up soon or the gov't will continue to over-extend its power until we cry "uncle"!!!

Everytime there is a really large lottery jackpot, the media drags out all these old stories about how foolish people lost all their money. Thank goodness for Jack Whittaker, whose horrible story makes us all grateful that we'll never win Powerball. But there's no IQ test for buying a lottery ticket. Obviously some really stupid people are going to sometimes win.There are a lot of good reasons not to waste money on buying lottery tickets, but the fact that you most certainly will lose it all probably is not one of the reasons.

I can't wait 'till I win the lottery! I'm going to keep working for the insurance, and I'm going to buy all new friends.

When states saw their revenues falling they initiated lotteries to aid their spending. It has nothing to do with helping people or going to education...it merely allows them to shift money that would have gone to education elsewhere...like building football stadiums for wealthy team owners. How much money is then spent by the states due to homelessness and gambling addictions, etc.? Gambling is regressive...those of us who are not poor play it for the fun and excitement...cheaper than going to Vegas, but don't bet large sums on it. Is there anything wrong with spending $10 on tickets if you would spend that much for a drink? But proportionately it is the lower classes who buy the tickets. That homeless man in Arizona got lucky...but how many thousands, millions(?), got nothing...zero, zip, zilch. The odds and the gods are against it but you will never meet a lottery winner that thinks it was a bad decision! Such is the way of betting. One thing you will find though...there are many winners who rue the day they won as ciaman stated...they are given sums of money that they have no comprehension of. They don't realize that because they can afford to buy something they might not be able to afford to maintain it. They don't know who their 'real' friends are and many succumb to their 'begging.' I wrote a letter to the Strib this week on capping the prizes and increasing the amounts on 5 0f 6 and 4 0f 6 winners. THAT is how you help the economy but the lottery operators who get a nice cut want bigger headline amounts because it attracts more ticket buyers. Pity.

Yes, the lottery is a regressive tax but toss a little bad luck my way. I won a whole dollar once.