With the millions of losers a few days ago in the mega lottery worth $624 million, I started wondering about lotteries. I’ve never been a fan of them, but I think now I am because most lottery money goes for various causes, such as education, senior citizen programs, etc. In other words, it’s just a tax by a different name. No wonder why I’ve never played any lottery.

When I was researching lotteries today, I found an article by Bloomsberg titled “Sorry, Sucker. The biggest jackpot winner is your state.” Their “Sucker Index” had a score for all the states that have lotteries. Only seven states don’t have lotteries:

• Alabama
• Alaska
• Hawaii
• Mississippi
• Nevada
• Utah
• Wyoming

Except for Alaska and Hawaii, the people in the other states can simply cross a state border and buy a lottery ticket.

I thought it was interesting that, generally, the states with the biggest sucker score were east of the Mississippi River, let by Georgia with a score of 37 and Massachusetts with a score of 36.5. West of the Mississippi River the highest sucker score was Missouri at 15.4 and Texas at 15. Five of the states without lotteries are west of the Mississippi River.

Telling?

The sucker score is determined by taking the total annual ticket sales minus the total annual prize payout and dividing by the total annual personal income of the state’s residents. Not really sure how they got the total annual personal income. Facebook? Google? Sounds like an invasion of privacy.

Bloomberg says, “Lotteries have the longest odds of any form of legal betting [yet generated] roughly $50 billion” in sales in 2010 in the 43 states with lotteries.

Here’s the complete list ranked by sucker score:

1. Georgia – 37
2. Massachusetts – 36.5
3. New York – 30
4. Michigan – 27.5
5. South Carolina – 25
6. New Jersey – 24.2
7. Maryland – 23.5
8. Ohio – 23.2
9. Pennsylvania – 23
10. Florida – 21.4
11. Kentucky – 21.3
12. Rhode Island – 20.2
13. Connecticut – 19.6
14. Delaware – 17.8
15. Tennessee – 17.7
16. North Carolina – 17.4
17. Maine – 17
18. New Hampshire – 16.5
19. Virginia – 16.3
20. Missouri – 15.4
21.  Illinois – 15.1
22. Texas – 15
23. Vermont – 14.4
24. Arkansas – 14.1
25. Indiana – 12.7
26. West Virginia – 12.2
27. Idaho – 11.6
28. Louisiana – 10.7
29. Arizona – 9.8
30. Wisconsin – 9.5
31. New Mexico – 9.4
32. Kansas – 9.1
33.  California – 9
34. Iowa – 9
35.  Colorado – 8.7
36. Minnesota – 8.4
37.  Nebraska – 7.5
38. Oregon – 7.5
39. Oklahoma – 7
40. Washington – 6.9
41. South Dakota – 6.1
42. Montana – 6
43. North Dakota – 4

So are you a sucker in a sucker state?

For the record, I’ve been to the dog races, once, the horse races once, and a gambling casino three times, all because friends want to go…. peer pressure. I’ve never played a lottery, but I think I did play the office pool one time for March Madness several decades ago. That probably tells you my opinion of gambling in any form.

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