news-record.com

As North Carolina's economy tanked, state tax revenues plummeted and the unemployment rate spiked, an odd thing happened: Lottery sales surged.

Customers bet $1.293 billion on the North Carolina lottery during fiscal year 2008-09, which ended June 30. That marked a 20 percent increase over the previous year, which itself showed strong growth.

This is good news if the priority is funding education programs supported by lottery profits. The contribution jumped to $414 million from $348 million in 2007-08 and $315 million in 2006-07. The additional money was sorely needed.

It's not such good news for players who may be losing more money than ever, which undoubtedly in these sour times many can't afford. The lottery amounts to a voluntary tax that some people are coaxed into paying by dreams of striking it rich.

The N.C. Education Lottery tries to fuel those ideas with a constant stream of new and richer games promoted by glitzy ads, such as a TV commercial featuring wrestler Ric Flair shouting "Woooo!" at the prospect of $100,000 payoffs. Lottery ad spending bumped up to $10.9 million in fiscal year 2008-09, from $8.6 million the year before.

It's not that no one wins. On the contrary, prizes amounted to more than $731 million, a big hike from $588 million in 2007-08. Some games paid as much as 74 percent of revenue in winnings, making them a better-than-average gamble for a lottery.

But it's still a gamble, and the idea of a state agency spending millions to entice citizens to gamble -- even to benefit education -- is still unsavory.

As Chris Fitzsimon of N.C. Policy Watch commented to The News & Observer of Raleigh, it's no different than if the state ran ads aimed at boosting liquor sales at ABC stores. Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet.

With its recent growth, the lottery is finally reaching revenue levels boosters promised when it was created in 2005. It's been harder work than they expected, requiring new games, bigger payouts, lots of advertising -- and maybe a deep recession to draw players with little else to hope for.