Studies show that the heaviest lottery players, the 20% of players who contribute 82% of lottery revenue, disproportionately are low-income, minority men who have less than a college education.

About one-half of American adults spend $45 billion annually on some 35,000 lottery games in 42 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It isn't news if someone earning $7 an hour scrubbing floors wins a dollar with a ticket, but it is news if they win big.

So who is playing the lottery? According to the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, in The Georgia Study,

*Blacks are three times more likely than nonblacks to be active lottery players.
*Males are almost four times as likely as females to be active lottery players.
*An individual without a high school degree or GED is more than four times as likely to be an active lottery player as an individual who has an education above the high school level.

Alabama is one of the few states that has successfully kept the lottery out. In a fact-finding study it was noted that legalizing a state lottery would create more than 16,000 new pathological gamblers, and cost the state more than $200 million socially and economically.

Do you play the lottery?

Have you ever won?

Labels: investing, lottery