Radio Smart Talk for Wednesday, May 18:
Most states across the country have lotteries, but Pennsylvania's lottery is unique. It is the only one in the nation where all the proceeds go to pay for programs that benefit older Pennsylvanians. For example, the PACE and PACENET drug prescription assistance program, rent and property tax rebates, and free rides on public transportation are all funded by proceeds from the lottery. Since the first tickets were sold in 1972, the PA Lottery has contributed more than $20.6 billion to programs for the elderly.
In fiscal year 2009/2010, about $3.06 billion in lottery tickets were sold.
On Wednesday's show, we'll talk about the lottery games and where those proceeds are used for.
LISTEN TO PROGRAM:
comments
There are over 12,000,000 people in PA.
That's $144,000,000 per year, all collected at tax time.
PA residents only (must have files a PA State Tax Return)
At $12,000,000 per month to "play" with:
Assume 50% tax.
Assume 6 payouts @ $1,000,000 after taxes.
That's 72 PA State millionaires per year.
Obviously, these are gross numbers, assumptions made that all 12,000,00 are tax paying (working age) adults. The numbers are not exact, though representative of what "could" be accomplished.
72 "new" PA millionaires per year means 72 families that would "potentially" buy a car, home and send their child/children to college.
I would have a problem being taxed for what amounts to State-sponsored gambling.
Thanks for the question, Edna. Different products appeal to different people. Generally speaking, the average Pennsylvania Lottery player is very demographically similar to the average Pennsylvanian.
The PA Lottery actually did have a game like this. In 2001, the Lottery’s first $20 holiday ticket, "Yule Be a Winner," had a guaranteed win on every ticket. Over the following two years, two more similar tickets were launched. The guaranteed win was only $5, and having this guaranteed prize for each ticket forced the Lottery to offer a much smaller top prize. Resulting consumer research informed us that players preferred the chance to win a more significant prize over a small guaranteed win.
The security and integrity of the Pennsylvania Lottery is paramount. The Lottery takes very seriously its responsibility to conduct fair and honest drawings.
The random number generators (RNGs) we use to select the winning numbers for our mid-day and raffle drawings are computers designed and built by an independent firm that consist of highly secure systems that generate numbers in a random manner. The RNGs are tested by a third party to ensure unpredictable, statistically random results. The machines are stored in a secure environment, have no external communications and cannot be accessed independently by employees. Further, the RNGs are not connected in any way to the Lottery’s gaming system, so there is no way for them to “know” what number combinations have been played.
This sounds like an unusual situation. Tickets should not be dispensed from an envelope, but rather from a solid pack of tickets in a display, dispenser or vending machine. Please contact the Lottery’s Security division to provide more details so they can look into this further. The Lottery Security division can be reached at 717-702-8026.
RSS feed for comments to this post