Lottery culture
A lottery culture pervades the United States. It is one in which public policy actively and purposely encourages lottery gambling. Through a combination of slick advertising and marketing strategies implemented by our very own state governments, a plethora of point-of-sale (POS) lottery terminals saturate America's retail environment. The goal? To ensure that the highest possible number of consumers succumb to the impulse purchase of lottery tickets.
A culture of captivity
Certainly, other considerations beside impulse purchasing factor into the decision to buy a lottery ticket. However, the impulse purchase factor is a crucial one that is consciously and purposely exploited by state lottery commissions. It is a culture of captivity that markets to, takes advantage of, and exploits this impulse in the consumer. The goal of lottery marketing is to bring the consumer right up to the lottery ticket counter. Once there, however, the consumer has no choice other than to purchase a lottery ticket.
Lottery gambling saturation
For whatever well-intentioned reasons, we find ourselves in the situation today in which 44 state governments have legalized, actively participate in, and encourage consumption of lottery gambling; worldwide, the number is 200 jurisdictions. In 2003, more than $45 billion in lottery tickets were sold via state lottery commissions in the U.S.; worldwide, over $115 billion. [1]
Ease of purchase
The state has made lottery gambling easy to do.
Location. Lotteries do not require a trip to a casino; they are everywhere and readily available at POS terminals. 87% of the U.S. population lives in a lottery state. [2] There are over 184,000 retailers in the U.S. selling several types of lottery games (of which 133,000 are on-line, one for every 1,696 U.S. residents). [3] Arizona, for example, has 2,500 licensed retailers state-wide. [4]
Easy to understand and easy to play. Lotteries are easy to play and understand. For example, with on-line lotteries, even if the consumer can’t figure out which numbers to choose, that task can be done by the lottery terminal. Indeed, the consumer doesn’t even have to know how to look up a win sheet and figure out whether he has won; the terminal will do that for him. Difficulty is no barrier to playing.
Unit cost. Cost of product is no barrier. The minimum ticket price of $1.00 makes lottery gambling available to virtually anyone willing to play. It doesn’t take $500.00 "to get into the game" as it may with high-stakes poker.
Strategically located. There is a reason why lottery kiosks and terminals are placed in cash-friendly retail outlets such as supermarkets, convenience stores and gas stations: that is where a consumer is more likely to have spare change and cash readily in-hand, making necessity purchases. Your state lottery commission didn't place POS terminals at car dealerships, furniture stores, doctor’s offices or plumbing supply outlets. No, they were purposely located where the impulse purchase factor is highest: high traffic of basic-necessity cash purchases.
And the terminals aren’t in the back of the supermarket near the butcher section or the supply closet; they are found either right beside the cash register or, conveniently, between the cash register and the exit door. Suppose I make a $25.00 grocery purchase which I pay for with $30.00 cash. I receive $5.00 cash in change and proceed towards the door to exit. I inevitably pass by the lottery kiosk with the “This Week’s Powerball Jackpot: $80 million” sign catching my attention. With cash in hand and having just made a cash transaction for groceries, my impulse purchase factor is highest...and I succumb and purchase some tickets.
Advertising. State lottery commissions actively promote the purchase of lottery tickets through advertising. It is claimed that lottery advertising often falls under the description of misleading or false advertising. Some states, such as Virginia, Minnesota and Wisconsin, have seen fit to ban lottery advertising.
Do lotteries encourage gambling?
The rationale behind having a legalized lottery is that lottery gambling is going to be engaged in by the public anyway and at least by legalizing it, a vice often controlled by organized crime can at least be taken off the street, properly regulated and the net proceeds put into worthy public programs such as preventing drug abuse or education.
But the question begs to be asked: do lotteries end up inducing individuals to gamble who would otherwise not have done so had lotteries not been legalized in the first place? Are states going beyond just accommodating a necessary evil and actually creating gamblers with their lottery enterprises?
If this is so, then the obligation on the part of the state to implement the LottoStocks concept is that much greater because the need to negate its wrong actions would be of utmost priority.
Repeal lottery laws?
It is not the position of LottoStocks that lottery gambling laws should be rescinded. LottoStocks understands, accepts and supports the rationale behind having the current lottery system.
What we are saying is that the state has the obligation to give the consumer a positive choice in addition to the negative one.
Our lottery culture allows the state, through its lottery commissions and legislation, to go out of its way to prey upon, exploit, and take advantage of the consumer. Lottery marketing is specifically designed to entice the consumer into bringing body, mind and soul to the ticket kiosks and video lottery terminals (VLTs) of America.
Once there, only one option is available: succumb to a lottery purchase.
With LottoStocks there can also be a positive, life-affirming choice.
Lottery culture must evolve
Let there be a new lottery law which requires all lottery retailers to provide two choices to consumers: the negative of lottery gambling and the positive of equity ownership.
Indeed, lottery laws everywhere should be amended to require that all consumers who approach a lottery terminal must be asked, prior to any transaction, the following:
“Mr./Ms. consumer, you have a choice. Do you want a lottery ticket or a LottoStocks investment?”
Since the law has seen fit to enable lottery culture to exploit the consumer's tendency towards impulse purchasing, there is no reason why he can't be provided a positive option as well. Certainly, lottery culture should be allowed to evolve in a good direction.
With LottoStocks, the state can still provide and support the necessary evil of lottery gambling...but it can go beyond that and offer something positive and help the consumer make the right choice.
[1] Annual Report 2003; Scientific Games Corporation; p. 5. See also: http://www.naspl.org/sales&profits.html
[2] Erinn Staley, "The public policy value of state lotteries", Gambling in America: Politics and policies, Professors Mason and Nelson, 23 April, 2001, p. 12 found at: http://www.rhodes.edu/public/2_0-Academics/2_1_5-politicalscience/pdfs/ThePublicPolicyValueofStateLotteries_ErinnStaley.pdf
[3] Retailer to population ratio, LotteryInsider.com found at
http://www.lotteryinsider.com/stats/agent.htm[4] Arizona Lottery, http://www.arizonalottery.com/Retailer.asp