Government Plus the Lottery Doesn’t Add Up

Now that recreational marijuana businesses are legal in Washington, consider promoting your spot for pot on the Washington State Lottery website!  

Have a creative alcohol marketing campaign and looking for an instant gratification venue where investing a little could yield a lot?  The lottery may drink to that!

Whether it’s a liberalized and legal liver-disease-associated drug; or liquor; or lingerie – anything suggestive at all (subject of course to approval, terms and conditions and disclaimers) - then there’s a suggestion, actually a bill, before the legislature to expose yourself and your product by advertising with the State Lottery Commission. 

HB 2279 would create both financial possibilities for you, profit to the state and, of course, progress of youth toward achieving their academic goals – a primary “beneficiary” according to the “Department of Imagination.”

Just imagine.

Since sex sells and recent studies show sex is primarily used to sell low-risk impulse purchase products – like lottery tickets – then, well, just imagine.

Since the Washington's Lottery is proud to be a partner with the Washington State Patrol then next time you see that flashing blue light in your rearview mirror you could find yourself with a verbal warning and a winning scratch-off lottery ticket like the lucky motorists caught speeding this past Christmas in Melbourne, Florida.

Actually, no stretch of the imagination there as it turns out since HB 2280 - one more than companion HB 2279 - would provide free – as in, free – lottery tickets for promotional purposes. 

Now why, do you imagine, would the government do that?

Imagine state governments promoting gambling, writes “The Washington Post’s” Michael Gerson, “state governments which have often been improvident in their own finances, hav(ing) turned to the active encouragement of improvidence in citizens as a source of revenue.”

Imagine “government actively undermining the moral underpinnings of market capitalism for its own benefit, hold(ing) out the promise of sudden wealth without work or productive investment, engaging in a purposeful and profitable deception. A corrupting fantasy becomes a revenue stream, dependent on persuading new generations to embrace it.

Imagine “government (no longer) as a source of moral improvement.”

Imagine “a government that profits by undermining public virtues.”

Imagine no longer.