Lotto blotto.

"South Carolina officially started its state lottery yesterday, becoming the last state on the East Coast to add government-sponsored gambling," reported the Associated Press recently. And The Wall Street Journal reports that state-sponsored slot machines are now in use in nine states: Delaware, Iowa, Maine, New York, Oregon, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Pennsylvania will soon join them, and other states are considering the move.

The Journal calls slots "one of the most popular and addictive forms of betting." If they are addictive, why are states sponsoring them? Because, observes Richard Leone, who was a member of the national gambling commission, they see the revenue they gain as a "free lunch." They think they are avoiding unpopular taxes, but in truth, the revenue produced by lotteries and slots is a tax--only as Leone also observes, it is a tax "more regressive than any."

Lottery tickets are purchased and slots are played largely by people of modest means. For a state to advertise its lottery and slots is enticing people to spend money many of them cannot afford to lose. And, what may be worst of all, it lures potential addicts into becoming real ones.