Lottery's Luster Scratching Off

Why go to all the trouble of buying a physical ticket?

(NEWSER) - Poker sites may be strictly verboten , but another kind of online gambling is starting to crop up: state lotteries. Minnesota has already begun selling lottery tickets online, even offering year-long subscriptions for its Powerball and Mega Millions games, USA Today reports. Several other states are considering following suit. A bill allowing online lotto sales has already passed a New Jersey Assembly committee, and another has been introduced in New York. More»

(NEWSER) - The many states hoping gambling will revive their troubled budgets are in for an unpleasant surprise, writes Nate Silver for Esquire. Gambling is supposed to be recession-proof, but that hasn’t been the case this time. "The year 2008 was the first time in history that total casino gaming revenues declined throughout the United States," writes Silver, of FiveThirtyEight.com fame. In Las Vegas, they were down a whopping 12%, and they’ve fallen another 15% this year. More»

(NEWSER) - Every state but Utah and Hawaii allows some form of legal gambling, and most have come to rely on it as a growing source of revenue. Unfortunately, a lot fewer people are hitting the slots or buying lotto tickets these days, the Wall Street Journal reports. Commercial casinos produced 2.2% less revenue last year, falling in eight of the 12 states that allow them. More»

Consumers tightening belts don't scratch their lottery spending

(NEWSER) - As the economy falters, one thing people aren’t cutting back on is lottery tickets, the New York Times reports. In fact, higher unemployment rates usually mean higher lottery sales, says one study, and sales are hitting record highs in at least 22 states. “With companies tightening and not giving cost-of-living increases, you have to try to make money elsewhere,” said one regular player. More»

Think Long Committee has the bucks to get measure on ballot, passed

(NEWSER) - A group of California billionaires is joining political insiders to put a $10 billion tax hike measure on the state ballot. Members of the Think Long Committee include billionaire Google chairman Eric Schmidt and philanthropist Eli Broad, as well as former governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Condoleezza Rice. The group's plan is to boost tax revenue for education and to pay down the state's debt by relying on an "ideological hybrid" of ideas from both the right and the left, spokesman Nathan Gardels tells the San Francisco Chronicle . The proposal would lower California's personal income tax and sales tax rates, but impose a 5% tax on currently untaxed services such as legal work and accounting. Under the proposal, couples earning up to $45,000 would pay no state income tax; those earning up to $95,000 would pay 2%; and those earning more would pay 7.5%, with a 1% surcharge for Californians earning more than $1 million. More»