Publications Index | Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’s Internet Archive
Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 181 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 181, December 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
So you didn’t win the lottery? With a one in 14 million chance of having the winning numbers, it’s not surprising really. If you lived to be 280,000 years old, you would only have an even chance of getting the winning ticket.
We are witnessing nothing more than a nasty Tory con trick.
The warning bells sounded when John Major announced as he bought one of the first tickets that ‘every man and woman in this country will be a direct beneficiary’ (he filled in his ticket wrongly and it was declared void). The companies behind Camelot, the lottery operators, are some of the biggest capitalists in the country: Cadbury Schweppes, De La Rue, ICL, Racal electronics and GTECH. They will be the real winners, with an expected turnover of £32 billion in seven years, and expected profits of £1.6 billion.
Where is this money coming from? Studies of lotteries from the US and Canada show that the poor spend a larger proportion of their income on tickets than the rich. The lottery has a £40 million advertising budget, and research by Saatchi and Saatchi shows that manual workers are more likely to buy tickets than white collar workers.
One of the selling points of the lottery is that loads of good causes – such as local sports centres, museums or arts complexes – will benefit. But there is concern that the Tories will use the allocation of lottery money to cut back on state spending in these areas.
The middle and upper classes benefit disproportionately from the distribution of this money. Manual workers and low paid white collar workers are less likely to play sport or pay to watch sport, less likely to visit stately homes and castles and less likely to go to the opera and theatre than middle and upper class people. As the Economist states:
‘All the bodies charged with distributing lottery money maintain that they will also favour small, regional and popular projects. But even if they keep that promise, richer people are still bound to gain most ... the people paying most for all this culture will be the poor.’
The other myth is that charities will benefit from lottery proceeds. On the contrary. The National Council of Voluntary Organisations (KCVO) has calculated that charities could lose between £190 million and £270 million a year. Research into the Irish lottery shows that 4 percent of those buying tickets would otherwise have given that cash to charity. A survey of 100 Irish charities revealed that a third had experienced a drop in income since the lottery was introduced, with 50 percent of Irish lottery proceeds substituting for government spending. No wonder that the NCVO is concerned that the lottery will lead to a drop in charity funds.
And remember when you hand over your next pound for a ticket that the government is raking in 12 percent from every ticket sold. Kenneth Clarke will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Socialist Review Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 12 November 2017