The Lottery: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

the lottery it's the second best use of magic marker on ping-pong balls after Kermit the frog's eyes now this past week saw a huge Mega Millions draw a big winning lottery ticket was sold in New York lots of people around here have been peeking at their lottery tickets this morning in the Mega Millions mystery this evening at 321 million dollar jackpot the search for the winner is on tonight well the winner should be too hard to find if someone at your work this week marched in and told everyone to go themselves before flipping their desk over and storming out that's probably your winner right there but but don't worry if you didn't hit the jackpot you will frankly have an unbelievable number of other opportunities to play 44 states currently have lotteries and you can't have missed the commercials featuring everything from a ping-pong ball thunderstorm to a furry dressed as a cat playing with a ball of money to a weird lucky man who for some reason had decided to spend his lottery winnings terrifying a penguin by taking it hang gliding that is a bizarrely specific use of a big lottery win look if my numbers come up I'm strapping a penguin to my chest and I'm taking to the skies cue evolution I decide who flies that's why shorts Reuters moku commercials lottery commercials are incredibly seductive and they're also everywhere states spend half a billion dollars on them every year and the reason they do that is that the lottery is a massive moneymaker for them last year alone lottery sales totaled about 68 billion dollars 68 billion that's more than Americans spent last year on movie tickets music porn the NFL Major League Baseball and video games combined which means Americans basically spent more on the lottery than they spent on America and if you think about it it's a little strange for the government to be running what is basically a gigantic gambling business but we don't think about lotteries like that perhaps because they're sold to us more as charitable foundations three billion dollars for education opens a lot of doors the Tennessee lottery game-changing life-changing fun education matters to Oregonians that's wherever five billion in lottery dollars have gone to support public education the Oregon lottery it does good things every time you play in New York lottery game a portion of your sale goes to aid New York State skinny children just like them New York lottery everybody wins thank you for being a friend those ads are basically implying that anyone who does not play the lottery is selfish hey what do you want to educate these harmonizing children your monster so let's take a look at those slogans everybody wins the lottery does good things and it's game-changing life-changing fun is it does it and do they look let's start with the basics the lottery generates sixty eight billion dollars in sales a year so where does that money come from over the course of the last two decades multiple studies have found lower-income households spent a higher percentage of their money on lottery tickets good that kind of makes sense lots of people like to gamble and for lower-income households a lottery is an affordable way to do it but generally when wealthy people want to take risks with their money they either choose to invest in the stock market or they leave their wife for Amba without signing a prenup because and us forever besides she just gets you she's a little tiring but she'll be there the lottery is in the business of selling people hope and they do a great job of that start a college fund for our kids start a college fund for their kids again with jackpots worthy of your dreams Mega Millions dream mega that feels like an ad for a mutual fund but crucially the lottery is not an investment because it's worth mentioning that those mega dreams are mega unlikely to happen what are the real chances of winning a lousy one in a hundred and seventy six million winning the Mega Millions is akin to getting struck by lightning at the same time you're being eaten by a shark okay that that is both an evocative image and an amazing pitch for a movie okay so there's this guy he's getting eaten by a shark see lightning hits him he switches minds with the shark the shark wins the lottery it's Freaky Friday meets jaws I'm calling it slum shark Gillian air slow shock million-selling thinking has passed yeah now the lottery does have some smaller games and prizes where the odds are a little better but even then it pays out a much lower percentage of its revenues than even a horse racing and the worst part is when you lose the lottery and you're angry with your ticket you don't even have the satisfaction of knowing that it'll be turned into dog food and yet and yet we are still drawn to the lottery Parli because we're told to ignore the odds it's your dream anything can happen dream play win hey you never know power your dreams for just 2 bucks those ads are so effective in the time it took you to watch that montage I went out and bought all of these lottery tickets someone's gotta win it might as well be me but even when people do win big things have a tendency to go south fast we've all seen tragic headlines about lottery winners like a lottery winner blows through 27 million lottery winner found dead in bed or brother hired hitman over 16 million jackpot win it seems winning the lottery can be like marrying Tom Cruise sure it seems amazing in your mind you might even dream about it happening one day but if it actually does five years later the magic will be over you'll be estranged from your family and you will have seen things you can never unsee never in Israel in Israel lottery winners are actually photographed wearing masks to protect their identities and in the 90s this is how one man from Gaza collected his prize most lottery winners don't turn up with a bag over their head but this 24 year old Palestinian wanted to remain anonymous that's right winning the lottery is such a curse that you can find yourself in the Middle East with a bag over your head because something good happened to you so so why do people play well for some they can't stop the lottery can be extremely addictive and states know this many lotteries offer resources to help problem gamblers the Illinois Lottery even has a section on their website for Responsible gaming although when we clicked on the link we got and this is true a pop-up ad for the lotto seriously Illinois there is a reason that the first step in a 12-step program isn't congratulations on starting the program will not reward yourself with a refreshing gin and tonic Cheers I'm sure I'm sure but that is just an innocent mistake just like I'm sure that it's a coincidence that if you google lottery intervention this is what comes up need a lottery intervention play the new DC fast play games from the DC lottery feel the thrill of winning instantly are you kidding me someone of the DC lottery deserves a promotion before they go directly to hell and at the very same time they're supposedly addressing problem gambling states are actively expanding into even more addictive products just look at Oregon the lottery takes in about it makes about a billion dollars every two years for the state about 80% of it maybe even more eighty six ninety percent yeah that's what we're running right there yeah the screen boy comes from one source and that's these video machines mostly video slot machines or video poker the vast majority of Oregon's lottery income comes from video slots and video poker meaning that Oregon claims this is a lottery machine because of course it is just like this is a lottery wheel and this is a lottery table and of course we all remember Martin Scorsese's movie lottery machines machines like these are not only addictive they're incredibly lucrative internal Oregon lottery data indicates that regular lottery players lost an average of 106 dollars per year whereas video poker and slots players lost an average of two thousand five hundred and sixty four dollars that's an insane amount of money you could buy a 98 Mazda with that money and you should you should it's got a moonroof and six way speakers you should get in it right now and drive in the opposite direction of any video poker machine although good luck with that if you live in Oregon because these machines are everywhere there are more than 12,000 of them in the state and that kind of ubiquity puts some people in serious danger my boyfriend and I have got gotten into into fights over you know I'll go out you know I'm just going somewhere with with a friend of mine and I end up playing video poker and where I'm supposed to go to the store to buy food and I come home with no food and no money you know soon as I walk in the door he knows and then we don't have any food remember the machines that are causing her starts trouble a run by the state a state which proclaims its lottery does good things at this point I'm thinking it may not be a coincidence that the logo for the Oregon State Lottery is someone crossing their fingers the universal sign for lying okay so so maybe maybe the next question maybe the next customer should be this why do state lawmakers keep approving all this well as those singing children told us lotteries are really all about good causes like education that's always been the excuse state lotteries were illegal in this country until 1964 when New Hampshire launched the first one under the guise of a very familiar message how come you're buying one of these pickles this is the first one in our country and I would like to participate in it and I also feel that it's very very good cause of education I don't think there's a better reason for buying well there probably isn't a better reason but there are plenty of better ways to fund education sales tax bake sale or simply putting cash into an envelope writing school on the front of it and mailing it because for all the claims for all the claims that lotteries are a huge boost to education the reality is a little different our investigation of government spending in the 24 states that dedicate lottery funds for education yields a stunningly bad report card the percentage of state spending on education is down or flat in 21 of those states from coast-to-coast lotteries provided no additional funding for education in 21 out of 24 states as math students in one of those places would put it that is nearly 50% how is this how is this possible what look let's let's please just look at North Carolina their governor inaugurated the North Carolina Education Lottery nearly a decade ago with big promises when the lottery is fully implemented we'll be adding another half billion dollars annually for education half a billion extra that sounds great you think by now all North Carolina preschoolers would be strutting around in fine bespoke suits quoting Nietzsche and Kierkegaard but in fact North Carolina currently spends less per student on education than it did when the lottery even began and if you're thinking how the is that possible it's because money and state budgets tends to move around a lot try to add money just for one purpose it's a bit like trying to piss in one corner of a swimming pool it's going all over the place no matter what you play let me give you just a narrow example in 2012 North Carolina used 100 million dollars of lottery money for school construction but that didn't mean the school construction budget was 100 million bigger than it would have been because while that money was flowing in other money was flowing out a portion of corporate income taxes used to go toward construction but when the lottery passed that tax money went away substituted with lottery revenue and why did that corporate tax money go who knows there's not even a warm spot where it once was but put in a completely unconnected development North Carolina plans to cut corporate taxes substantially over the next few years so thanks for playing the education lottery North Carolina better luck next time but despite all this states are not only keeping faith in lotteries they're doubling down and trying to reach new players by putting it on your cell phone Illinois launched an app this year to let you buy tickets on your phone which is terrifying because we all know that if starting right now your mother could play the lottery as easily as she plays candy crush in three weeks she'd be preparing Thanksgiving dinner over a trash can fire but what I'm sure I'm sure that Illinois will make the same argument that everyone does to justify state-sponsored gambling hey it brings in money for good causes except as I think we've seen by now lotteries are bad for losers often bad for winners and a pretty compromising way to assist state budgets think about it this way gambling is a little like alcohol most people like it some are addicted to it and it's not like the state can or should outlaw it altogether but it would be a little strange if the state was in the liquor business advertising it by claiming that every shot of vodka you drink helps school children learn yep thank me for being a friend I'm going to get those kids an iPad of a winner everybody's a winner you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 14,588,034

Rating: 4.895256 out of 5

Keywords: midterm elections, alec, state legislatures, hbo, corruption, john oliver

Id: 9PK-netuhHA

Length: 14min 35sec (875 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 09 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/PureDarkness93]

One of my lecturers at university buys 2 lottery tickets every Friday. We have a class with him until 3.30 and I run into him in the supermarket every single time after the class.

After seeing him there about 4 weeks in a row, I asked him what he was doing. He said he's buying 2 lottery tickets, one for him, one for his wife and has done every Friday for the past 10 years. I told him "that's sweet, to have a tradition with your wife after all these years"

He said "No kid, you don't understand. We have an understanding, whoever wins first finally gets to leave the other one forever. It's the only thing that keeps me going."

... I still have no idea if he was being serious...

[u/thesickmind]

Here in Finland video poker is massively popular. I always held those machines to be simply a harmless way to spend a few idle moments while waiting for a friend to arrive or something. I couldn't imagine anyone spending over 10 euros on one until I started working nights at a gas station.

There would be people that would come in every night at around 1AM and start playing for hours upon hours. They would spend anywhere up to 200 euros in a single night. Putting coins in a machine. A few times I saw adult men crying after having spent the their last few coins as the sun came up. I saw a lot of people who would come to the gas station every evening, cash 100 euros into coins and proceed to spend the entire night there, sometimes with their children looking on.

My view on gambling changed completely seeing this. Gambling is as addictive and damaging as any drug can be. I know there's science behind this as well, can't be bothered to dig it up right now. There's talk here occasionally of changing the law so that video poker machines would only dispense tokens as winnings, as in Sweden, that can only be traded for goods in kiosks. For a long time I thought a change in legislation like this would be just another way for the state to intervene in people's lives, but man, after seeing people in serious gambling addictions, I think it might not be that bad an idea after all.

[u/komacki]

The salmon cannon part of the episode was gold as well.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/JamesMusicus]

Loving this "Last Night's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Reddit" show.

[u/big_ern_mccracken]

I just have to point out that Tennessee now offers every highschool graduate TWO years of FREE community college. Free college. Free. An associate's for free.

[u/djaeke]

Every week, he fucking hits a nail right on the head. Can't wait till next season.

[u/chinkan5]

When is it coming back?

[u/DeadDude45]

UK mirror ?