E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSGeorgians are among the biggest suckers in the nation when it comes to buying lottery tickets, spending an average of $470.73 each on the games of chance, according to a report by BloombergBusinessweek.
Only Massachusetts residents spent more on the games, averaging $860.70 per adult, more than three times the U.S. average, according to the Sucker Index created by Bloomberg Rankings. But Massachusetts players are luckier than those in Georgia, winning back 72 cents for each dollar spent.
In Georgia, players won only 63 cents for each dollar spent.
The Sucker Index was created using 2010 data from the U.S. Census and annual reports from state lottery commissions, which include multistate games like Powerball. The rankings are determined by subtracting the total dollar amount of prizes awarded from ticket sales. The difference is then divided by the total personal income of each state’s residents.
Using that formula, the top five Sucker Index states are: Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, South Carolina, BloombergBusinessweek reported.
The rankings have gotten attention in Georgia, where the Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote a blog post about the Sucker Index, noting BloombergBusinessweek found that lottery players in the state are “doing the most damage to their personal finances” and that “the pot comes disproportionately from lower-income residents.”
In a guest editorial in the Sunday Augusta Chronicle, Georgia Lottery spokeswoman Tandi Reddick said Bloomberg’s story was “demeaning.”
New York ranked third in the index, followed by Michigan and South Carolina. The lowest scores went to Oklahoma, Washington, South Dakota, Montana and North Dakota.
Some states didn't rank at all because they don't have lotteries. They are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Mom: Trayvon was killed because of 'the color of his skin'
- Fuhgeddaboutit! NJ top state for fighting corruption
- Woman found dead with three kids was 'good mom'
- Nebraska tornadoes rip roofs from houses
- Soldier held in Afghan killings had financial issues
- Tea Party spokesman arrested in sex assault case
Leave a Comment:
Wanna bet....?
Lotteries are a regressive tax against the poor. They are set up to make money for the state, ostensibly to pay for education or some other noble goal. The funny thing is, education has not improved despite the existence of state lotteries for several decades now.
It is ironic that liberals are not screaming about lotteries. I guess anything that funds big government is ok by them.
I am sure its coming. They will propose the price of the lottery ticket be based on your income so it is "fair" just like income tax is "fair?"
I love how when everyone pays the same, it's called regressive. That's liberal speak for, "if it's fair, then it's not fair." As a poor person, let me just say that I'm glad to pay some tax. It gives me rights. If I don't pay any tax, then what right should I have to voice my opinion?
@Warren
Could you please tell me where in the Constitution it says that I have to pay money for my freedom of speech? I'm just curious because I'm having a hard time finding it, and someone of your genius level should be able to help me out here. Thanks!
dude15 didn't you know? Conservatives hate those big words that most can't spell like "Logic" and "Facts".
My impression of CONservatives: "Facts? Hmph. Wtf are those? WHO NEEDS THEM ANYWAYS? I'M A REPUBLICAN! I MAKE UP EVERYTHING SO THAT IT SUITS MY PERSONAL AGENDA!"
Also when you do my perfect impression of conservatives you'll have to say it in a stupid, uneducated, redneck, backwater hillbilly southern accent or you're just not one of those Conservatives with 0 common sense. Oh yes, you'll also have to wear the proper apparel when you say it. That means that you'll have to wear a confederate flag somewhere like on a jacket because many conservatives are subconsciously racist. If you do all of that you can be a TRUE Conservative impostor. (which I'm not sure why anyone would want to be a stupid person but ok...)
Gary 420 what a twit ! what does being a republican or democrat have to do with this issue .Great way to boil every important issue down to politics. keep breaking up the country.
Gary420,
Can you please define big government? I always thought it was big military, big prisons, and big fences around my personal life(religon being shoved down my throat) or is that considered little government? Wow, I'm confused!
Fake mustache that's weird I thought the same thing and haliburton also comes to mind. Truth be told if we really had conservatives I might just vote for them. But spending to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan after Georgie Jr. continued Daddy's fight. I just cannot fathom. Better to spend that here on health care and welfare. Than give it to another country. Oh dam guess I am a liberal American.
Better than a liberal Foreign Oil Traitor Like the GOP
Funny how liberals cry about something being shoved down ones throat, like religion which they can choose to accept or reject. Then accept something like a healthcare plan imposed by the feds in which there is no choice. Liberals pit the poor and middle class against the rich powerful and oppressive insurance companies then with this plan, drives you to those same insurance companies to buy your coverage. Granted the lottery is targeted at the poor and those of the middle class, but some have won and thereby escaped the poverty and hopelessness the feds have sought to keep us in. There is no one who doesn't want to be rich. Including our president.
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION, guys. Don't forget that.
I may be a dumb Georgian, but your story says that Yankees in Massachusetts spend nearly DOUBLE what we do on lottery tickets.
Yet the article doesn't say, "Dumb-arse Yankees spend all their money on Lot'ry tickets!"
Do it?
Besides, me and Lurleen won one of them scratch-offs and bought us a new double-wide.
So there!
The index is total money lost divided by aggregate statewide personal income. Georgians lose 37% of $470.43 ($174.05) while people from Mass. lose 28% of $860.70 ($241.00).
So people from Massachusetts lose 38.5% more money in the lottery than people from Georgia, but the average person from Massachusetts earns 45.3% more than someone in Georgia, so the average Georgian is losing a higher percentage of their income than the average Mass. resident.
Whoopdido!
Not makin fun of ya'll but how much did that New double-wide cost you? Better to have bought a used house on some land that was in hock by tha bank. No? At least you would get a basement for when the wind starts a blowin and that tornado blows that semi stick house away.
Lotteries are unfair in that they take take advantage of the math-deficient by making them pay more taxes.
And Robert, Georgians are bigger suckers because they make way less money than people in Mass. Again it's about the math.
All that aside, Grats to you and Lurleen! :)
Now they be upper crust trailer trash.
and you be wrong
HOW DO YOU KNOW?
Did they move that old pickup truck off the blocks and that old couch from the front yard? Does the pig still have it's own bedroom?
Both of my kids graduated from universities in Georgia and I never had to pay a dime for tuition, thanks to the Hope Scholarship directly funded by the GA state lottery and indirectly funded by all the suckers out there.
I like lotteries... I wish I could run a private one, without all the legal hooey required. Then I could claim payouts of 75% of the ticket price, or even higher! Prizes would be glamorous, people would play nation wide!
(And I'd probably pocket something like $20 million a day...)
How come the government is the only one allowed to do this?
You really have to ask that question?
can you say "pools"???? For everything imaginable.....ncaa football, nfl football, boxing, ncaa b-ball, nba b-ball, baseball, soccer, and any other sport that people are familiar with enough to "buy a block", I've seen some pools where the payout has been as high as $15,000.00-that one was for superbowl
A $15K payout for a "Box" is nothing. here are multiple SuperBowl pools in NY where the payout for the final score (the only payout) is $1 Million....of course it coss $10K to buy a box, and 99 out of the 100 boxes are losers...sill it is a 100% payout (neglecting having to by ALOT of drinks if you win).
In Vegas, I'm called a gambler. That makes me feel so much better. Sucker? How rude!
I'm not dumb enough to gamble in a casino, but I do play about $100 a year in the state lottery. Do I expect or even hope to win? No, but $100 a year will have zero impact on my personal financial status in return for a very very very slim change to have a huge affect. On the contrary, casinos are a guaranteed loss. Guaranteed.
In Vegas, the "take" is under 5% for most table bets.... A far cry from the 25% (or even much more) in the lottery.
I'm surprised Florida isn't listed, even though Alabama doesn't have lotto they still hop over and play it so do people from Mississippi or anyone on vacation.
The main reason lotto got voted in here in Tenn. is that people were so sick of seeing how much money was going to Ga. and Ky., so we copied their (Ga.) law pretty much word for word and then hijacked their state director for a major salary bump; she married one of the legislators right after that and he's now "retired". Pretty good gig, as she makes about 20x what he used to, at least "above the table". Now college is pretty much on its way to being seen as an "entitlement", too.
Agreed, I live in Michigan and sometimes the line at the gas station is for the "suckers" trying to play the luck at getting rich quick. Don't get me wrong, someone has to win, but I am with the baby in the etrade commercial dealing with Frank's retirement plan. "You know you have a better chance of being mauled by a polar bear and a grizzly on the same day right?" When you lose, do you yell FRANK--this of course is the g rated f word, but you know what I mean....
That's the best one I heard yet.
The lotteries are the biggest bunch of SH** that think I have ever seen all the money for education what a bunch of crap if you took all the money put into public ed. and gave it to a private school we would have some of the brightest people on the plant. This is no different then put your money in the crapper and watch it go down the drain....
I guess if you took all the money from public ed. and put it into private schools they wouldn't be private anymore would they?
Hey, ya never know. Yes we do. If you play there's a 99.9% chance you're going to win nothing or chump change.
For all the people on welfare and foostamps they sure have a lot of money to waste on the lottery.
So, ats whur you r, Lurleen! You wait til I find you. Please, people, divide income into what we, as a nation, owe because of the national debt, because of career politicians, of big banks, I could go on and on.........................
What a serious loser's game though. Massachusetts sucks and hardly ever pays out the big winners. I absolutely never play those games but I know people who do. Imagine these eople get back 72 cents for every 100 cents they spend? That is insane. Disgusting.
Massachusetts has the highest payout rate, which is 72% of the total purse on any given scratch game being paid out as prizes. The article is totally misleading in terms of prizes and payouts. If you are not familiar with lotteries and read this article, you will walk away with the impression that lotteries are paying out prizes that are less than the value of the ticket; not only is that not true, such a practice would be illegal under federal law.
Massachusetts lists all its scratch games on its website, with prize breakouts. I've done the math on most of their $5, $10, and $20 scratch games and can say that your claim of Mass not paying out big winners does not hold water. One out of every two $10 books goes for multiple wins of $100 and up while every $20 book goes for a minimum of 3 to 4 wins $100 and up. There's also a 90% probability of any given $5 book paying a winner of $100 or higher. You will not find better probability on scratch games anywhere.
If you are truly looking for disgusting, you need to look at Rhode Island's scratch lottery, which would never survive a court challenge to its legitimacy as a lottery. Rhode Island for years used to put out $1 scratch tickets which would fail every test of federal lottery law. You could only win once on the ticket and the prize was $6. Problem? Turn the ticket over and you see that $6 prizes do not exist at all. This fails federal tests on the grounds that the chance of winning is not real because the prize is not real. But, then again, what could you expect from a state that is home to the only horse or grayhound track to be blackballed by Vegas (Lincoln Grayhound Park for dogs being raced under false names, with shoe polish on their faces, as unraced maidens in lower grade races; their owners were making a killing off this scam)?
I find it rather odd that there is a lot of fun being made about people playing the lottery, when in fact, we, as a country, pay tax upon tax upon tax endlessly, without doing anything about it, like lemmings going over a cliff. My simple arithmetic says that adds up to 350 Million suckers! At least with a lottery you have some miniscule hope of getting something for your investment.
Put me down for a dollar........please
I buy a lottery ticket i only play 1 number. i know that the odds are long but it seems like investing 1 dollar in it your odds go up quite a bit. just say'in
I almost died over a gambling addiction. Now I speak at churches about how bad it is... Keep on believing your gonna hit it big , one ticket leads to two, then 3,4,5,6,7,8,9......... But I guess the odds are as good as most people getting a substantial raise............. play on america...................NOT.
I have won the lottery were I live, I used that money to buy a badly needed washing machine.
I also haven't won that much sense either. I'm still trying though.
I have already said that I would give money to my town's school if I ever did win big.
I'd also start a scholarship for those kids as well. I live in a very small town and the kids here are very smart but also very poor and that is why I would give to them first.
I can dream and wish all I want it's the one thing the "Feds" haven't tax yet.
Also I want to add I spend $48.00 a month on my "Vice", I don't drink that much, one bottle of wine once in a while and I don't smoke.
If you keep it to that, then it's about like going to movies or going to football games. It's a shame that some people can't.
I agree with you. I gave up smoking and drinking, thus saving hundreds of dollars per month. I then "invested" a portion of my savings into the lottery. Paul Ryan meets with the Koch brothers to plan the Libertarianism of America over lunch dates. They wash down $500 bottles of wine. The investment of their lottery is to sucker the American public into voting in this Fascist Oligarchy Revolution. So if you are poor, spend $5 dollar less for that pack of cigs and "risk" $2 of it in a lottery.
Your formula does not take into account the out of state players. Most people buy a fantasy that last until the drawing.
Correct. In both Tenn. & Ga. the biggest retailers are all located along the Ala. line.
Lottery? Wuhhhhaaaa............the only winner is the state. In California, education is where a large percentage of the lottery funds is supposedly going, yet the quality of education is taking a dump. Money is not what makes good students. It only make lots of administrators. Lottery money is what makes the politicians think living within ones means is only for private citizens. No state should have a lottery.
One of the gigantic fallacies is how it all goes for education. That means that they appropriate less for education and more for other things. Any time that education wants a lot more, it's "WTF you already are getting the entire lottery!" You're also correct about the number of administrators. Apparently lots of people with advanced degrees in "education" want nothing to do with a classroom. There's several times the number of those people that there were when I was in school for relatively few more students. Our "pupil:teacher" ratio looks great here -- like a "prestige" private school -- until you realize that they are dividing the number of students by the number of "certificated personnel" rather than by the number of actual classroom teachers. The vast majority of lotto money here, Ga., and lots of other states actually goes to "higher education" and HOPE scholarships. Some of these students major in education and then go into administration so that they can avoid dealing with any actual students but still have great benefits and job security.
Mass, N.Y. and Meeeeechigan. Magna Cum Laude Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooool. The Bastions of the Liberals and that is how they keep the poor folks poor.
tell this to the ones who hit for millions end of work for them but not you .so go get one and wish a win in your pick .
If the lottery money goes to schools and other government expenses then the money is just a voluntary tax. If you don't pay any federal or state taxes then please play the lotteries. Usually the lower the income the more of government services you use. So, again, please play the lotteries. Play them a lot. You might become rich.
If the lottery was on the up and up, the drawings would be held before a studio audience with someone holding up the latest newspaper verifying the time and date, and there would be some kid with a glove on pulling ping pong balls with numbers out of a hat. I would then have full confidence that what I see on the tv isn't taped, or per-determined.
Guess it's that "show me, I am from Missouri."
There's a problem with their figures. Lots of people from Alabama play the lottery. They buy their tickets in adjoining states. For most Alabamians, that means Georgia. Any intelligent person knows that winning the lottery isn't a good bet. I play the lottery, because it makes the days less boring. Now that I think about it, if I stopped playing the lottery I could afford the cigars my doctor doesn't want me smoking. I play the same numbers, for the same amount every week. It's that, or cigars. I need one or the other.
Let's see one ticket,two drawing a week . I spend 104 per year on my lotto ticket, I don't smoke,drink or go out that much so this is my little excitement. I have won small amounts ,just about break even so I would not say I was a gambler. Years ago I went to the Trotters Race in New Jersey with 18.00 in my pocket for betting. the guy I was with had 300.00 to bet. I bought 2.00 bet each race, came home with 20.00 in my pocket, the guy I was with? lost it all. He was pissed at me, I could not figure why. He also got mugged after he dropped me at my home , he was bragging about going to the tracks in the pub he went to.. some times it just does not pay to get out of bed.;)
A lottery is a tax on those who do not understand math. A track is a tax upon those who THINK that they do ...