Alberta's Wildrose party proposes lottery to fund NHL arenas
 

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=412721

Don't current digital lottery games and other similar gambling devices generate revenue that goes towards public services like health care?

Simply adding more machines will siphon gambling cash used for other more important expenses.

This is what I was thinking. And encouraging more gambling doesn't sound very responsible either.

It would be an interesting social experiment. Have the machines and post labels to describe where their money is directed and see which ones get more play.

Then use all the money for public services anyway.

You could say that about anything. Hell, the mere existence of the Flames and Oilers means that the money that Albertans spend on hockey tickets is money that they can't donate to hospitals and other charitable organizations. Should the Flames and Oilers just relocate to Alabama for the good of hospitals across the country?

If it was the state's responsibility to discourage behavior because someone somewhere might take it too far, then we wouldn't be able to buy booze, cigarettes, lottery tickets, medication, caffeine, porn, and junk food. What magically makes this different?

No you can't. This is giving money to millionaires to pay other millionaires and avoid property taxes.

So do they want to shift current lottery spending from funding other civic functions, or are they actually talking about trying to encourage more gambling amongst the middle class...?

Lottery: The tax on the mathematically challenged

I have nothing wrong with holding lotteries to fund an arena. If it's now considered fine for teams to force "Personal Seat" Licenses to fund arenas, then a lottery shouldn't be considered wrong either.

Not a bad idea, in theory. Better than corporate welfare cheques from municipal governments. Too bad neither of Alberta's two main political parties can be trusted to handle something like this. The right-wingers in the Wild Rose Party, for ideological reasons, will find a way to privatize the profits and socialize the losses once the arena is actually built, while the Tory crooks in power now will give the profits to Redford's relatives and the bills to Albertans.

It's a little bit more complicated than that. From a pure expected value concept, this is almost always true. With the exception of certain progressive jackpot lotteries, you will lose an infinite amount of money if you played a lottery or a scratch ticket an infinite number of times. From an expected utility perspective, however, winning a $10 million lottery jackpot will help you more than the $5 a week you spend on tickets will hurt you, assuming you play responsibly. I rarely play lotteries because I prefer playing poker (as well as other card or dice games) when I have the urge to gamble, and I find it more stimulating to play against people rather than against a house, which is why I don't set foot in casinos even though I'm all for having one in Ottawa proper.

That's one limited perspective.

There are many others where it becomes clear why it is in fact quite rational for people to play the lottery.

If you're playing a buck or even $10 a week, I mean yeah, who cares it's not a big deal.

It's when people start dropping $100+ on their own when people are idiots, because mathematically your odds aren't that much better with 100 tickets than they are 1.

Your argument makes no sense. Hospitals aren't funded by private donations, they're funded by taxes and other sources of government revenue.

Private citizens like us are free to spend our cash however we want, including on frivolous things like hockey games and ipods - though we have a strong incentive to spend our money wisely. Governments are mandated to spend our money wisely.

My point is that adding more gambling machines isn't "free money" as is being implied by the Wildrose. Spending new gambling revenues on a hockey arena is equivalent to spending ordinary tax dollars on one. Therefore it's not immune to scrutiny.

In B.C., the government has their own legalized sportsbook style betting site called playnow.com. They figure since so many people are using the offshore sportsbooks to wager, they might as well try to keep some of that money in province.

It's money the tax payers are willingly giving away so they cannot whine about it.

Hospitals do benefit from private donations either through direct donations or the plethora of 'lotteries' they run every year. They are usually targeted funding but still from private sources.

As for the lottery, for most people it's voluntary and harmless. For the rest, it's a mental addiction and is a problem for them.

Loto 649 has a 1 in 26 million chance to win the jackpot.

Can someone in Alberta correct me if I am wrong here about the party it self.

They are a far right wing border line libratarion party?

They talk about being responsible for yourself, not using government for everything etc. Than they have this which is private business, getting benefit from government run program? Is this not counter to what there party stands for, they are just adding a new layer of government.

This to me from the outside, just seems like pandering, which sure will get votes but than they will become just a regular party, that everyone will hate.

Edit: If anything they should open up gambling laws, let the teams run it themselves and if people chose to buy tickets teams will get money. Wouldn't that be the far right/small government approach.

The only way it would work (without hurting existing lottery revenues) is if the Flames and Oilers brands were directly associated. But there's no way in hell that the NHL would allow gambling to use its brands as a label.

Typical well thought out policy from the Wildrose party.

On aggregate what are the chances of somebody winning it? The chances of my house burning to the ground are pretty slim. But I still buy insurance. Insurance companies make money so mathematically speaking it doesn't make sense to buy insurance. But we do because its better to spend a small amount for the potential savings in case of a huge disaster. The logic behind the loto is no different.

And its 1 in roughly 14 million not 26

Ugh, I disagree on all their political platforms, but I really want a new arena. It's not fair that they make me choose. ;)

It's a good idea, we're going to have to start funding arenas. Owners will just move the team to a city that gives them a free arena.

good move , the city pushed for that here too but the provincial govt prefered to give us a check

No doubt, I'll quickly be set straight, but I'm certain there was a Flames/Oilers branded lottery back in the .60 Canadian dollar days...
I think they set a target amount, and when reached, the lottery was finished.