Ethical State Lottery

1299 Words3 Pages

The Case of the state Lottery is in essence about whether or not its actions and existence can be ethically justified. The case made is the benefit of state funding projects, individual happiness ( from playing/winning) against the negative outcomes and influences the Lottery has on society and the individual.

The utilitarian monster
The lottery is an institution which is all about money. People play to win big, but often loose and the Lottery is always the winner because it always earns more money than it loses.

“the Official California Lottery Financial Report, of the total $59.25 billion the lottery took in from people buying tickets, about $30.54 billion was given back in prizes”(Chen, Yang, & Chen, 2010).

When the Lottery is more …show more content…

So, as a governmental agency, one might assume that its goal is to gain utility ( money) in order to fund state expenses.

The problem is that the people who buy lottery tickets are so plentiful and the gain of the Lottery so enormous. This gain is used to fund the state. Sometimes through projects that target the poor, the middle class or evenly distributed. However the Lottery is setup, it takes a lot of money and does not give back evenly distributed.

‘’the poorest members of society tend to spend (and, by design lose) the most on lottery tickets.’’ ("Case Studies", 2012).

This is where the monster part comes in.

The Lottery gains through selling tickets a massive amount of utility (money/pleasure). Much more than one person who buys a lottery …show more content…

B., & Otekunrin, O. A. (2014, July 2). On the Performance of Lottery Winning Strategies: A Case Study of Oyo State Lottery, Nigeria. Retrieved from

http://www.journalrepository.org/media/journals/BJMCS_6/2014/Jul/Oyeleke4172014BJMCS11432_1.pdf

Palma, M. (2015, March 17). Types of Hedonism by Margaret Palma on Prezi. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/xgiranhoyalo/types-of-hedonism/

Rosenfeld, S. (2013, April 15). 10 reasons state lotteries ruin the economy - Salon.com. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/10_reasons_state_lotteries_ruin_the_economy_partner/

Utility monster - Conservapedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.conservapedia.com/Utility_monster

"Versions of Utilitarian Happiness", section 3 from the book Business Ethics (v. 1.0). (2012, December 29). Retrieved from https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s07-theories-of-consequence-ethics.html

Weijers, D. (n.d.). Hedonism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/hedonism/

“Case Studies”, section 3.5 from the book Business Ethics (v. 1.0). (2012, December 29). Retrieved from

Show More
Related

  • Comparing The Pedestrian And The Lottery

    775 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the reader is introduced to a utopian community who practice the tradition of a lottery every year. At first glance, it seems like a nice day and the kids are just collecting rocks while waiting for their parents to arrive. All of the citizens show some excitement over the upcoming the lottery. The text states,

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay: Does The Lottery Help Education?

    431 Words  | 1 Pages

    Has the lottery helped education as promised? There has been evidence in the Bible and ancient Rome texts that lotteries can be traced all the way back to Europe in the 15th century (Willmann 1). After that the lotteries made their way across the Atlantic from England to the United States.The first American lottery was established in Puerto Rico in 1934. This was followed by the New Hampshire lottery in 1964.The entire history of the lottery includes the debate over whether or not it is ethical.Lotteries are not only unethical but also ineffective ways to raise state revenues for education.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Against the Odds and Against the Common Good

    1742 Words  | 4 Pages

    The following two paragraphs are a summary of Gloria Jimenez's essay Against the Odds and Against the Common Good. States should neither allow nor encourage state-run lotteries. There are five major arguments that people use to defend lotteries. One is that most lotteries are run honestly, but if gambling is harmful to society it is irrelevant to argue if they are honest or not. The second is that lotteries create jobs, but there are only a small handful of jobs that would be eliminated if lotteries were put out of business. Another argument that would support keeping lotteries is that, other than gambling addicts, people freely choose to buy lottery tickets. This is true, however, there are misleading advertisements that may cause people to buy tickets under false pretenses.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Connotation In The Lottery, By Shirley Jackson

    1045 Words  | 3 Pages

    Typically, when someone thinks of a lottery they think of something positive and exciting but contrary to this idea in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, the connotation has an entirely different meaning. As the story begins, readers lean towards the belief that the town in which Jackson depicts is filled with happiness and joy. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (Jackson 247) We soon realize that this notion is far from the truth. As the townspeople gather in the square for the annual lottery, which sole purpose is to stone someone to death by randomly pulling a paper out of a black box with a black dot on it, it is learned

    Read More

  • The Texas Lottery Commission

    580 Words  | 2 Pages

    Everyday, there are a lot of people who play lottery in Texas. Is the lottery a good idea? Can we get happiness from winning the lottery? There are more questions to be considered concerning to the lottery. In this paper, I will write about the Texas Lottery Commission, and how it was established, its purpose, the organization and the current leader.

    Read More

  • Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    906 Words  | 2 Pages

    The theme in “The Lottery” is violence and cruelty. Violence and cruelty is a major theme because there is a lot of violence and cruelty in the world. The Lottery has been read as addressing such issues as the public's fascination with salacious and scandalizing journalism, McCarthyism, and the complicity of the general public in the victimization of minority groups, epitomized by the Holocaust of World War II. The Holocaust was very cruel and violent cause other people didn’t like certain people so they just kill them and their children and still now we have violence and cruelty with wars and people that hate each other.

    Read More

  • The Lottery System Should Be Required To Offer Financial Literacy

    871 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Don McNay, a financial advisor who has several lottery-winning clients, approximately 90 percent of lottery winners blow the money they’ve won within 5 years (Morrison). This often leads to lottery winners filing for bankruptcy. The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards reports that approximately 1 in 3 lottery winners will declare bankruptcy, making them in a worse place than they were before winning the lottery (Edelman). Worse yet, more lottery winners have gotten divorced, become estranged from loved ones, been depressed, abused alcohol/drugs, and committed suicide at a higher rate than the average American (Edelman). Clearly, lottery winners are not happy, despite winning a massive amount of money.

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Gambling

    730 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lottery companies emphasize that their money goes toward public education. In some cases this is true ,in Tennessee we have The Hope Scholarship and the two year promise which is funded from the lottery. Nearly two thirds of lottery money is set aside from prized. About five percent is used to pay for salaries and advertising. Then what 's left is used to pay for the prizes. The rest goes to the states to use. However based the 2012 study the biggest portion of lottery money goes toward prizes instead of public education which is against what the lottery companies stated. Also the online gambling site “Bet365” received a 2.75 million dollar penalty. They were guilty of luring new users with false free bet offers. The free bets offers was als attached with other unfair conditions. Players had to first gambling three times the value of their deposit and bonus within ninety days before withdrawing any winnings. They have drawn in over 73,000 players with this false advertising. Also Fanduel is misleading and they do not fulfill their promises. FanDuel is reportedly months behind on paying their users.They are trying to reach an agreement with New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman for false advertising. Last year FanDuel spent millions of dollars on ads promising to pay users. However, it was reported that ninety four percent of people lost their money and only one percent of the users took home almost all of the money

    Read More

  • Should State Lottery Be Abolished

    1210 Words  | 3 Pages

    Have you ever wanted the chance to win millions upon millions of dollars with buying one single ticket? All of your dreams could come true when you play the lottery. When you play the lottery you have the possibility to change not only your life, but the people's lives around you. Many people in the state of Mississippi say that the lottery is a waste of money and that we state already has a casino system, but the lottery should be legal in the state of Mississippi because the winners can do good with their winnings and change not only their lives but other people's life.

    Read More

  • How Does The Lottery Affect The Average Person

    828 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lotteries Mislead the Average Person Lotteries hurt the average person, because buying a lottery ticket is “no different than putting a hundred or a thousand dollars in a slot machine” (Steinberg). They are usually misled by the hope of winning a large jackpot. So many people are hooked on the hope or the adrenaline rush while playing the game that they fail to realize the dangers of addiction and cause their families to suffer. The government is of no help to them though, because many have been using the same techniques for centuries. The lottery is ineffective and harmful because of its mental dangers, origins, and odds of winning.

    Read More

  • Is The Lottery Good Or Bad

    842 Words  | 2 Pages

    With such low payouts, tickets act as an implicit tax of 38 percent…(“How Lotteries are Bad”)” (www.thinkprogress.org) Therefore, playing in the lottery cannot be a positive act in society because of how much damage it causes. If the game of gambling was a truly palatable behavior there wouldn’t be so many chaotic consequences after people play it.

    Read More

  • Psychological Effects Of Winning The Lottery

    458 Words  | 1 Pages

    However, is there a limit of happiness to this fortune and is it actually healthier to lose the lottery then to win? Multiple scholars examine the psychological, behavioral, and social effects of winning the lottery; how it could be beneficial toward individual situations, and in other

    Read More

  • Negative Effects Of Winning The Lottery

    746 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although this seems like a blessing, spending money in an excess fashion on expensive goods can also contribute to the downfall of most lottery winners. In a recent study by the Camelot Group it was found that, “44% of those who have ever won large lottery prizes were broke within five years” (Edelman, 2016, para. 4). For example, in 2013 a woman by the name of Sharon Tirabassi won the lottery of worth more than $10,000,00 however, she would soon find out that her money would soon be gone. “Today, after spending almost all her winnings – ‘big house, fancy cars, designer clothes, lavish parties, exotic trips, handouts to family, loans to friends’ -- she's back in the working class: riding the bus, working part-time, living in a rented house” (Murphy, 2013, para. 3). Despite the large sum of money Sharon won, the carelessness in spending put her in a position to lose almost everything she won from the lottery.

    Read More

  • Public School Skew

    862 Words  | 2 Pages

    People buy tickets and the proceeds go into a pool, that is a relatively set amount. When a ticket has the matching numbers to win, the lotto companie pays out the amount designated to the owner of the ticket. Then the unforgiving rain of taxes and deductions begins, First the government takes its share then the state takes its cut, then it depends on how the person wishes to receive the money that is left, if the winner decides to take a lump sum, Jared Walczak, a senior policy analyst, claims that so called winner is looking they are looking at around $506 million (Walczak). That is not a small amount, until it is taken into consideration that that would be the money received with an initial payout of $1.8 Billion. That is at around one-third of what was promised. The winner is also looking at a really fun time with the IRS. So then on top of this, before the IRS, there would be even more taken out of this already ransacked amount that the winner was to initially receive to support the local schools, the winner is looking at their jackpot shrinking

    Read More

  • Why Is The Lottery Bad

    615 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Good and Bad of the Lottery Having a competitiveness is good because people like challenges. People compete and complete till they win. People compete for sports jobs any many more. Gambling is a good way to compete. Lotteries are not an ethical and effective way to raise state revenues for education because most money from the lottery doesn’t go to its designated place ,minors play the lottery, and those who play the lottery are typically low income.

    Read More

More about Ethical State Lottery

Open Document