news-record.com

BLOGS

Capital Beat

Lottery may be prohibited from selling at check cashing businesses

Back in March, I wrote about the lottery brokering a deal to sell lottery tickets at check cashing businesses.

After that story ran, Rep. Pricey Harrison filed H 1289: No Lottery at Check Cashing Sites.

It passed the J-I committee today with bipartisan support and no objection from the lottery.

According to a list of lottery retailers I laid my mitts on earlier this year, there are eight ticket sellers who have "check cashing" or some variant as part of their name.

An amendment to the bill was offered that would have prevented those who work for businesses that sell tickets from playing lottery games. It was withdrawn due to objections from the lottery.

"The amendment, I guarantee you, will severely impact our return to education," said Lottery Director Tom Shaheen. He called reports (here and here) about retailers playing the lottery in a fraudulent way over-blown.

Permalink
Tags: Elections

Posted by Mark Binker on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 10:59 am

This article has been closed to new comments. Comments are generally closed after 14 days. However, comments may be closed earlier at the discretion of the News & Record.

Inappropriate content? Please report abuse.

Advertisement | Advertise with Us

James Protzman (imported)

May 5, 2009 - 12:51 pm EDT

Shaheen should change his name to "shameless." What's a little bit of organized fraud among lottery retailers? Why it's nothing but another overblown story.

Jerk.

Andrew Brod (imported)

May 5, 2009 - 10:24 pm EDT

This bill is nothing more than a feel-good measure, for two reasons: (1) our struggle to justify the lottery and (2) our dislike of certain businesses that serve the poor.

The lottery is a wrongheaded program, and I think that deep down, most of us know that. After all, we justify it in truly bipolar ways. We say it's a revenue program, but if that's the case then it's like a tax. And if it's a tax, it's one that hits primarily poor folks.

Well, no, say its defenders, switching gears impressively, it's not a tax because no one's forced to buy lottery tickets. Okay then, so it's a business. But if it's a business, it's one over which the state maintains a monopoly, and like any monopoly, the state lottery pays less in winnings than private-sector gambling industries like casinos.

So either the lottery is a tax that targets poor people, or it's a business that'd be better left to the private sector. Neither is good public policy, but we have a lottery nevertheless.

Then there's North Carolina's ongoing bias against businesses that serve poor folks. This is especially interesting to me because I often criticize conservatives for letting their ideology trump that inconvenient thing called evidence. But when it comes to payday lending and similar activities, liberals are just as bad. Never mind the evidence that payday lending has been shown to be a sound credit alternative for poor and working-class folks, to liberals such stores are bad, bad, bad.

Now that we've stupidly banned payday lending in North Carolina, all we're talking about is check-cashing stores. Is there any evidence that people are harmed by being able to buy lottery tickets in such stores? Of course not--it's just assumed to be a bad thing. It's theology, not economics.

Consumer policy usually tries to make things fairer or more convenient for consumers. But in this case the state of North Carolina proposes to say to a certain group of consumers, i.e. lottery players, "For you we want to restrict your choices and make things less convenient because we know what's good for you." The bill will let liberals feel good because they can pretend they're protecting poor folks. (I don't know why it's getting conservative support.) But the result will be good feelings among the middle class, not assistance to the poor.