SAN ANTONIO – When the next legislative session begins, state lawmakers could be faced with this question: Should the Texas Lottery be abolished?
A report is currently being crafted to examine that question, and it will be presented to lawmakers early next year.
Opponents of the scratch-offs and Powerball drawings that have made the lottery popular the last 23 years believe the games target the state's poor.
"You don't see rich people buying a lot of lottery tickets," said Dawn White, executive director of Christian Assistance Ministries. "For some of our clients that may not have had a good education around money management, they've always struggled to have such little dollars that getting that immediate gratification by buying that $1 or $2 lottery ticket can seem like a good idea. When you're living in such a marginalized existence it can seem exciting and maybe like a real possibility when we know it really, in all actuality, is not."
Opponents also said the billions of dollars the lottery has generated for the state's public schools are doing little to nothing in the classroom. Lottery revenue is also allocated for veterans assistance, but some lawmakers believe that money is just being used to buy more lottery tickets.
Though he will not have a vote if the legislature votes on abolishing the lottery, Rep. Joaquin Castro said the state should take a close look at getting rid of the lottery, or, at the very least, provide help to those who are sacrificing their future a few dollars at a time.
"The folks that tend to buy the lottery tickets the most are lower income folks," said Castro. "What we have to do is make sure that we set up resources in case there are folks who are literally addicted to playing the lottery in the same way that you might get addicted to playing slot machines, or poker or something else."
In September, the Texas Lottery reported its highest annual contribution to public schools in the lottery's history, $1.2 billion. But with an annual education budget of nearly $60 billion, some believe that money has little impact in Texas school districts, many of which struggle for adequate state funding on a yearly basis.
To watch this week's hearing on the pending lottery report, click here.
The link of the joint committee hearing contains testimony from supporters of keeping the lottery and charitable bingo including Bill Hammond, the President of the Texas Association of Business and Paul Melton, the president of the Texas VFW Foundation.