There’s a right reason for legalizing expanded gambling and a wrong reason. The wrong reason is, “the state needs more money.” Guess what’s afoot in Illinois? From the Chicago Tribune:
Hoping to squeeze more money out of the state lottery, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton wants to sell tickets online and hire a private company to manage and market the games.
Cullerton thinks new technology and fresh ideas could help Illinois — facing what could be a $9 billion hole in next years budget — dramatically boost lottery revenues.
"I would venture to say you could potentially even double it," the Chicago Democrat said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
But lottery experts are skeptical, noting Internet sales could raise legal questions and might not attract many new customers because lottery tickets already are so easy to buy.
Senate president hopes to expand Ill. lottery — chicagotribune.com.
Even if you tripled the state’s lottery sales, you’re still getting about $300 million in revenues. That’s nowhere close to $9 billion. So why even consider expanding the lottery for budgetary reasons? It’s not going to help enough to make a difference.
If the state believes that its citizens, as responsible adults, should have the right to buy lottery tickets online, so be it. But just throwing the magical gambling switch without regard to anything but a possible increase in revenues is a recipe for a public policy disaster.