Bacon's Rebellion

Another Reason to Avoid the Virginia Lottery

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by

Dick Hall-Sizemore
in ,

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

One of the top selling points made for approval of the establishment of the Virginia Lottery was that lottery profits would be dedicated to public education in Virginia.

That is still the message that the Virginia Lottery peddles. Scroll to the bottom of its website home page, past all the current offerings, and you will see, in large font, the “total Virginia Lottery profits generated for Virginia’s K-12 public schools since 1999.” The message: “Buy a lottery ticket. If you don’t win, your money goes to Virginia schools.”

Anyone familiar with the Virginia budget knows this is specious. The lottery profits are used to supplant general fund support for K-12. If there were not the lottery profits, the amount of state money for K-12 would likely be the same but would come entirely from the general fund. The explanatory bullets in Governor Youngkin’s budget document provides clear proof of that relationship. The estimate of lottery profits increases by $73.3 million for the biennium. However, that does not mean that the amount of state funding for K-12 increases by that amount. Instead, the existing general fund appropriation for K-12 is reduced, almost dollar for dollar, by the amount of the increase in lottery profits. The result is a $3.00 net increase in funding for K-12 due to the increase in lottery profits.

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14 responses to “Another Reason to Avoid the Virginia Lottery”

  1. James Kiser Avatar
    James Kiser

    NO shock about it. And now we have casino's.

  2. James McCarthy Avatar
    James McCarthy

    Virtually every state lottery is deployed similarly. The public was led to think lottery $$$$ would be additional supplement.

  3. Troublemaker Avatar
    Troublemaker

    All three states I lived in (NY, CA, VA) pulled the same scam.

  4. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    It’s a tax on those who refuse to appreciate probability.

    IIRC, it wasn’t like this originally. It was an independent funding source for schools, but after it was established, they changed the rules for handling the excess.

  5. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Speaking of a lottery…

    https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fhighlights-from-protests-in-front-of-gwanghwamun-gate-on-12-v0-4eloda5gtw9e1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D2088%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D56abad6c472600ba1179189b6a6f674edd63a1d4

    So much for the vaunted engineering skills of the South Korean people. Makes me rethink ever driving a Kia or a Hyundai, let alone buying one.

    Now see, that’s not going to work.

    They centered the pulley over the blade as opposed the rope run on the pulley. This could cause a slight drag to the left and induce a wobble in the blade that might cause it to jam in the tracks, or worse not reach proper speed. No point in discussing the obvious lack of mass in the blade or that the fall is far too short.

    Jeez, mv^2 people! I wouldn’t put my head in that thing until they fixed it.

  6. Teddy007 Avatar
    Teddy007

    All public funds are fungible unless the only source of funding is from a single, non-tax source. Even if the lottery money was all spent directly on schools, the state would just reduce other funding for schools.

  7. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    Another key element of the con behind the original lottery bill was the promise there would be no advertising. Liars from the start. The spots promoting scratchers for Christmas are nothing short of nauseating.

  8. Marty Chapman Avatar
    Marty Chapman

    If we view the lottery as a tax, it is purely voluntary and does provide some measure of entertainment. I do object to the lottery machines taking debit/credit cards.

  9. Clarity77 Avatar
    Clarity77

    If you look at the year of inception of state lotteries you will of course predictably note they first were conceived in blue democRAT states. And yes as another democRAT scheme to essentially raise taxes especially on the poor which of course they do not care about in the least.

    But lo and behold their plantation slaves of whatever rainbow color you would like are now waking up which bodes well in 2025 and going forward for our nation. Here is the evidence:

    https://www.patrickruffini.com/p/america-now-has-more-republicans

  10. Santo Perdido Avatar
    Santo Perdido

    Quit your whining. At least this means there's money that's being generated to fund the schools. If not from the lottery, where do you think it would come from? Most likely tax increases. Everyone loves to whine about something, even when it serves no purpose. Use your energy for more important things.

  11. Charles Pyle Avatar
    Charles Pyle

    The 2000 constitutional amendment merely states that proceeds from the lottery will be distributed to counties, cities, and towns to be expended for public education purposes. There is no language setting a baseline state funding level to be supplemented by lottery proceeds. Prior to the amendment, lottery proceeds just went into the General Fund with no dedicated purpose other than as specified in the Appropriation Act.

  12. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Well, they COULD say that any profits from the lottery and Casino can ONLY go to unfunded priorities, like , homelessness, affordable housing, hospitals for rural Va, oxycodine treatment, etc, etc… Anything on a list that the GA and Gov could not figure out how to fund but deemed worthy.

  13. Marty Chapman Avatar
    Marty Chapman

    Dick, I do not understand your reasoning. Does the lottery revenue not free up an equivalent amount for other spending priorities? Does it not guarantee a minimum amount will be allocated to K-12 education?

  14. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Money does NOT have to be fungible. It can be explicitly set up to recieved dedicated sources and funding limited to dedicated purposes:

    For instance, taxes are collected specifically to do gas station tank remediation. It is not funded from the general fund nor is money taken from it to fund general revenues.

    Social Security is another example. Money collected from FICA taxes is spent primarily on Social Security, not other programs. Money has been borrowed from the Trust Fund but has been paid back with interest.

    Another in Va is the Literary fund.

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