Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Low Income Hamiltonians and Lotteries

With concern that a new casino located in downtown Hamilton would harm low income Hamiltonians, I wonder about forms of gambling already available. Places selling various forms of lottery tickets from scratch tickets to 6/49 are ubiquitous in the lower city. How much of this buying is done by those in poverty? Could we start an education program warning the poor to stop throwing their money away on lottery tickets? Is there any program that could work, or is it fruitless?

I wouldn't mind seeing some data on what is spent by Hamiltonians of all levels on lotteries. I might take a deeper look into what stats are available online. Certainly decreasing spending on lotteries (and tobacco for that matter) frees up money for more worth causes.

Also why don't more people care about this issue?

No comments:

Post a Comment