[mkr-hn]

Lotteries are a symptom of the problem of poor financial education. Lottery-funded scholarships are the only way a lot of kids get to college. Ban the lottery, and their parents will blow it on something else. That something else will probably not allocate most of its funding to scholarships.

edit: If this country were rational enough for the solutions proposed in replies, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

[toomuchtodo]

You don't need lottery-funded scholarships if you have universal education (as most first world countries do).

[ctdonath]

The money has to come from somewhere. Taxing innumeracy seems a good start.

[toomuchtodo]

> Taxing innumeracy seems a good start.

Taxing based on wealth instead of intelligence just seems more....civilized?

"The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members."

[LLWM]

"The measure of a value judgment is whether it is enclosed by quotation marks"

[ctdonath]

Old saw: if you want less of something, tax it; if you want more of something, subsidize it.

[angersock]

Or, alternately, we should be funding that education by taxing companies who will ultimately be consuming those employees anyways.