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Q: Should Maine be in the lottery business?
Sean Faircloth
You know what the number one recreational activity is among seniors these days? Joining the Peace Corps? Nope. Sex? Nope. Gambling? Yep. That’s right. Gambling. Who’s to judge, I guess?
Washington County, Maine’s poorest, spends more per capita than any other Maine county on the lottery, $240 for every man, woman, and child— more than collected in Maine income tax from most Washington County residents.
Sure, most lottery purchasers “play responsibly,” as the slogan says. The people who run the Maine lottery are responsible. The lottery itself, however, raises questions—about hard work and earning your way. Meanwhile, the state spends major advertising dollars encouraging people to fantasize about getting rich quick. “Lighten up!” I hear you say. “Gambling’s like sex and booze—might as well ban breathing or flirting. For most, gambling’s just recreation.” Fair enough.
The father of Maine’s lottery is responsible and honorable. Arthur Genest is a retired railroad worker, union man. In 1973 he was a state representative from Waterville. Genest did his own research, drafting a proposed lottery bill, picking and choosing lottery policies from other states.
Often elected officials simply shepherd legislation brought to them by lobbyists. It’s a rare legislator who starts from scratch with a detailed policy idea from his or her own hand—then winds through the legislative process, securing a governor’s signature. It’s a skill few possess. Genest pulled it off.
Yet the marketing for the lottery has become more sophisticated, and the variety of games has expanded since 1974. The lottery puts about $40 million into state coffers. Pari-mutuel betting (“the hosses”) brings in about $3 million. Hollywood Slots brought in $16 million in 2007. That number will increase with the new Hollywood Slots.
National data indicates 1% of Americans suffer from problem gambling. Money was set aside for gambling addiction counseling in Maine, but a funny thing happened on the way to treatment. Nobody got services—despite gambling hotline calls nearly tripling in Maine since 2005. Luckily, Maine has a new 211 system that may better connect gambling addicts with 40 newly certified gambling counselors.
It’s not the Maine way to poke our nose in personal behavior—unless public health’s at stake. Since Maine chooses to rely on $60 million in net gambling revenue annually, might we at least consider the public health implications accurately? Yet no gambling abuse prevalence study has been done despite gambling’s increasingly high profile.
The saying goes, you can’t smell cards on the breath of a gambling addict. I’ve heard contradictory information from good people about how serious this problem is, but Maine must place a high enough priority on the public health of its citizens to at least quantify the problem, then figure a pragmatic way to connect people to treatment. The industry can afford to kick in for a real addiction prevalence study in Maine.
And if a few more seniors (as well as the rest of us) decide to join the Peace Corps, that wouldn’t hurt either.
Rep. Sean Faircloth is a lawyer who served as an Assistant Attorney General before initiating the Maine Discovery Museum. A child advocate, Faircloth completes five terms as a Maine legislator in December 2008, his last term as House Majority Whip.
Scott K Fish
Look, the Baldacci administration and the Democrats in charge of the legislature have given us an unsustainable government. State government is so desperate for its daily cash fix, Maine will penalize you for redeeming in Maine the soda can you bought in New Hampshire. I will not be surprised to see state workers, under direct orders from Governor Baldacci and the State Employees Union, scouring mall parking lots for dropped coins. Therefore, a philosophical debate on whether or not Maine should be in the business of hawking lottery tickets is moot. In fiscal year 2007, lottery tickets accounted for $50,624,741 in Maine’s general fund—money used to help pay for 250 government programs.
A government concerned with 5-cent empties is not about to give up $51 million a year.
To the contrary. Whenever a storeowner sells a $1 Maine lottery ticket, state government pays the storeowner 8 cents. In March 2008 Dan Gwadosky, Maine’s Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations director, said 8 cents was too much. “We have some stores . . . making $50,000 and $75,000 a year just from sales of instant tickets,” Gwadosky said (Lewiston Sun Journal, 3/21/08). True to form, the Baldacci administration recommended punishing Maine’s most successful, hardworking lottery ticket sales agents by chiseling away at their commissions. Less money for lottery agents, more money for the general fund.
I have no personal beef with Maine government being in the lottery business. I’ve bought a few lottery tickets. I’ve also paid for raffle tickets to win a gun, a canoe, a quilt, to help locals raise money. That’s the extent of my gambling.
I made my living for a decade playing drums in bars. Those years served as a great study in human nature. I met some great people, but I also met drunks who had no business being in bars.
I suspect buying lottery tickets—gambling, in general—is the same way. Some people can “play responsibly.” Others can’t. But frequenting bars, drinking booze, buying lottery tickets—these aren’t government mandates. One of the greatest motivators for my quitting smoking was the satisfaction I’d no longer be bending over for the smoking zealots in Augusta. Do you object to Maine’s lottery? Don’t buy tickets.
There is one troubling aspect of Maine’s lottery: the degree to which the buying/selling of lottery tickets adds to a growing mindset that gambling is Maine’s ace-in-the-hole for economic development. Hollywood Slots is Bangor’s fait accompli. Oxford and Washington Counties want casinos. Scarborough Downs is pressing for slot machines.
Gambling—lottery tickets included—should be one of many economic choices for Maine. The east/west highway. Cell phone towers. High-speed Internet. Increasing the I-95 weight limit. A pro-growth tax system. These are other ideas for creating Maine jobs.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Maine where, when you heard the phrase “Dream a little, dream a lot,” you didn’t think first about Maine lottery tickets?
Scott K Fish is owner/editor of the political web forum www.asmainegoes.com.
