A customer is handed a Powerball lottery ticket for purchase at Lichine’s Liquor & Deli in Sacramento, California, Monday, October 31, 2022. The jackpot for Monday night’s draw increased to $1 billion after failing Did anyone match all six numbers in the Saturday night draw. This is the fifth largest lottery jackpot in US history.
Rich Pedroncelli / AP
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Rich Pedroncelli / AP
A customer is handed a Powerball lottery ticket for purchase at Lichine’s Liquor & Deli in Sacramento, California, Monday, October 31, 2022. The jackpot for Monday night’s draw increased to $1 billion after failing Did anyone match all six numbers in the Saturday night draw. This is the fifth largest lottery jackpot in US history.
Rich Pedroncelli / AP
Nearly three months after a Powerball ticket sold in Pennsylvania won a $200 million cash prize, the game’s jackpot was get a raise current estimate is $1.2 billion.
The total is estimated to be the second largest jackpot in Powerball history and the fourth largest jackpot in US lottery history, based on Powerball website. The US record set in 2016 was $1.586 billion.
But until someone is lucky enough to match all six winning numbers and hit the jackpot, lottery players across the US will continue to shell out their dollars in hopes of beating the odds. bet and win big. (As of Wednesday, the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, according to Powerball.)
However, critics say the incentive to get rich from the winning ticket has a dark side and argue that state-run lotteries often negatively impact ethnic minorities and low-income groups.
“The state lottery is the most neglected example of possible racism,” said Les Bernal, National Director for Preventing Predatory Gambling in the United States, an advocacy nonprofit organization. system in the United States than any other problem or problem in our country. Interview with NPR.
Bernal says that, through marketing and advertising, state-run lotteries have no regulation for their “predatory activities” that affect low-income communities – which mainly include black and brown people.
Timothy Fong, co-director of Gambling Studies Program at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“There’s a huge amount of advertising and marketing that is professional lottery. Even on my Twitter feeds I see this a lot… you know, the very positive message that goes with it. “, he added.
Studies show that lotteries are concentrated in low-income areas
Maher Diab holds cash before buying a lottery ticket at Bluebird Liquor, Friday, October 28, 2022, in Hawthorne, California. The jackpot winnings are estimated at US$825 million, the fifth highest in US history.
Mark J. Terrill / AP
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Mark J. Terrill / AP
Maher Diab holds cash before buying a lottery ticket at Bluebird Liquor, Friday, October 28, 2022, in Hawthorne, California. The jackpot winnings are estimated at US$825 million, the fifth highest in US history.
Mark J. Terrill / AP
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The most recent change came in August when Powerball officials added an extra draw day to build on bigger prizes and boost sales.
But with the game making new changes and more drawings weekly, communities of color and low-income communities are continuing to be the subject of predatory gambling.
From research that, in 2021 alone, Americans spent nearly $105 billion on lottery tickets — with the average American adult spending about $320 a year on tickets.
In one nationwide investigation state lottery by Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of MarylandThe researchers found that the state’s lottery retailers were disproportionately grouped in lower-income communities.
And in some states, studies show that these retailers primarily exist in Black and Latino neighborhoods.
“What we’re talking about are activities in the gambling industry that are explicitly designed to take advantage of vulnerable or disadvantaged communities,” Fong said.
Fong, who studies the clinical features of gambling disorders, says to combat money gambling, government regulators must first address the question of who – whether it individual or states – responsible for preventing activities that target vulnerable communities.
“Why would you sell a potentially addictive product that we know creates no wealth and income for anyone?” Fong said. “Should there be hats on that?”
Lottery affects both communities of color and education
When introduced to Americans, the original premise of state-run lotteries was marketed to raise funds for education — such as K-12, college, or both. Some states use their lottery revenues for other things like road and park maintenance American Institute for Economic Research.
However, the Howard Center’s investigation found that the state lottery’s promise of educational support did not quite match.
Instead, lotteries often create inequality by “disproportionately benefiting” college students and wealthier school districts far from the neighborhood where lottery tickets are sold, the Howard Center. news.
Gregory W. Sullivan, a former Massachusetts inspector general and now research director for the Pioneer Institute, said: “The poor are collateral damage for fundraising purposes for what legislators feel is good cause. … public safety, local schools. Howard Center.
Bernal agrees. “You have low-income people, basically paying for college scholarships for middle- and upper-class families to go to college. That’s the American dream, quite the opposite,” he said.
