The Lottery: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

What Hacker News said

Recommends jab2014 · 2015-03 · on “Calling the Oregon Lottery's Bluff After Poker Machine Dealt a Strange Hand”

The practices of the Oregon lottery seem wrong to me. Government should be in the business of helping people and providing uncorrupted resources and facts, not marketing dreams and hope to people while taking their money hand over fist. John Oliver just did a good segment about this too [this video]

Recommends joesmo · 2015-05 · on “Engineers of addiction”

I was actually thinking outside of slots. A lot of gambling practices are still illegal like sports betting in most of America. Such illegal gambling often leads to some sort of organized crime around providing loans and the actual gambling service itself. But I was also thinking of alcohol prohibition in the 1920's and the current drug prohibition. The black markets that these events created are not that dissimilar from the one around gambling and the core cause is the same. I do think that eliminating the profit incentive is something that could work. The profit from gambling is cited as a redeeming quality, however, as a reason for legalized gambling to exist. The overwhelming idea, at le

Recommends AaronFriel · 2015-09 · on “Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado”

This is good news and bad news. The funding for schools will be a boon to education in the state, and that's certainly not bad. However, I expect will almost certainly lead to decreased education funding from other revenue sources, and ultimately place education footing on less solid ground for years to come. It was brilliant PR move to earmark the tax revenue for education, there's no doubt about that. It's very hard to argue with such things, and many other states have opted to dedicate certain "sin taxes" to select public works. For example, earmarking some funds for veterans affairs out of state lottery tickets as my state (Iowa) does, or education as many more states do. On the surface,

Recommends studentrob · 2015-10 · on “Blowing the Whistle on the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department”

In some domains, even restricted funds are fungible. Check out John Oliver's video on state lotteries: [this video]

Recommends edgartaor · 2017-08 · on “Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison”

>some states they claim to use lottery proceeding to improve math education About that, this video is worth watching. No that is 100% true, but good enough to start a conversation. [this video]

Recommends kkielhofner · 2023-03 · on “Bitcoin is a solution looking for a problem”

The old saying "money is the root of all evil" often does generally apply and lotteries are an excellent example of state-sponsored financial ruin. I especially like the John Oliver pieces[0][1] on that one. I see it everyday - video poker "cafes" and here in Wisconsin the cultural acceptance and actual embrace of weird things like "pull tabs" and "dice games". Las Vegas is an entire city that has been built on financial ruin. But we can simultaneously criticize, express concern, and work towards fixing multiple issues at the same time. [0] - [this video] [1] - [LINK]

Cites scotty79 · 2014-12 · on “An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters”

> He's empowering others to destroy their lives, which very often leads to more crime as addicts will steal or even kill for their next fix. What do you think about state organized lotteries then? [this video]

Cites jimbokun · 2015-06 · on “How MIT Students Won $8M in the Massachusetts Lottery (2012)”

Lotteries are generally a corrupt enterprise to begin with, so the moral scales probably lean toward the side of the MIT students. [this video]