According to the Georgia DHR, there are at least 8,400 Georgia adolescents who are addicted to gambling with another 39,000 at risk of becoming problem gamblers. The Georgia DHR estimates that 2.3% of the state's adult population could be classified as problem gamblers, at a cost to the state of $221 million a year.

Dr. Durand Jacobs, American Board of Professional Psychology, "During the past year, more than 14 million juveniles have gambled, and 2 million have serious gambling-related problems." Dr. Jacobs also stated, "Where there is active promotion of state lotteries, there is increased participation in gambling among juveniles.

When any one form of gambling is promoted, participation in all forms of gambling is increased by juveniles."

The average cost to society of a compulsive gambler is $13,200 per year.

The Georgia DHR has found that while minorities make up 26% of Georgia's population, 48% of all problem gamblers in the state are non-white.

In Indiana, 90% of minors have gambled, with 65% of those youth playing scratch-off lottery games.

Of the senior-citizen problem gamblers in Florida in 1995, 72% said the source of their problem was the lottery.

Promoters of lottery gambling for scholarships are talking in terms of $150 million per year which would require about $450 million in ticket sales per year; that translates into 115 lottery tickets for each man, woman, boy and girl in Alabama. With $450 million drained from expendable funds usually spent in the business community the state, county and municipality will lose sales tax revenue from that money.

Government is in business to serve and protect the citizens. States that run lottery gambling exploit the greed, ignorance and gullibility of citizens with a proverbial "carrott" known as a jackpot. For government to win the citizens must lose. That is very poor public policy!

Dr. Valerie Lorenz of the National Center for Pathological Gambling reports, "The lottery is a major factor in the increase of compulsive gambling in this country. State officials aggressively promote lottery gambling. The advertising is pervasive; you cannot escape it.

And the lotteries promote all forms of gambling with lottery themes of card games, raffles, even sports betting."

According to Heartland Policy Study, April 23, 1991---THE ODDS: Seeing a no-hitter baseball game – 1 in 1,347; finding a pearl in an oyster –

1 in 12,000; having quadruplets – 1 in 705,000; being struck by lightning – 1 in 1,900,000;

winning the California Lotto – 1 in 23,000,000; AND winning the recent powerball lottery – 1 in 80,000,000!

Researchers for the Center for Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego bluntly say about lottery advertising: "If the California State Lottery were a private business, it would be guilty of false advertising."

Dr. Robert Goodman in The Luck Business –

"In their attempt to solve economic problems with gambling, government leaders are further undermining their already precarious credibility with their constituents. They are encouraging a public perception that governments can do little to support a healthier economic climate for all citizens, and that the best they can do is to provide enormous windfalls for gambling companies and the limited possibility of jobs for those fortunate enough to work for these companies. That we have also arrived at a point in time where state government agencies are studying demographics and psychological behavior of state residents in order to encourage them to gamble more, not only raises moral questions, but calls for a more fundamental reassessment of the nature of government's role in the business of gambling."

In South Dakota the state run lottery began in 1987 and land based casinos followed in 1989. Peder Ecker, a federal bankruptcy judge in Sioux Falls said, "There's definitely a pattern of increasing bankruptcy filings because of gambling." He attributed most of the bankruptcies related to gambling to the state's video lottery.