‘Stacked against you’: Critics say the lottery system is preying on poor communities
As lottery players across the nation accept that they didn’t win the historic $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot this week, experts are pointing to the flaws of a lottery system they say unfairly targets poor Black and brown communities.
Les Bernal, national director for Stop Predatory Gambling, called it a form of “systemic racism” and “consumer financial fraud.”
Bernal said poor people are being scammed into believing they will someday gain wealth from a winning lottery ticket.
“They’re hoping to pay their rent at the end of the month or pay an outstanding medical bill or put their kids through college or they just lost their job and they’re just trying to find a way to make ends meet,” Bernal said. “And here you have what is a government program encouraging citizens to lose their money on rigged games.”
A study by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism found that stores selling lottery tickets are disproportionately located in poor communities of every state. In most cases, the money these residents spend on lottery tickets does not come back to their communities but rather to colleges and wealthier school districts, the study found.
The Howard Center pointed to a 1999 report to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission that found that Black and low-income people as well as high school dropouts were the most frequent lottery players.
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