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Articles

Lottery or Lootery?

Gordon Giles asks whether the national lottery is immoral.

It is impossible to contemplate the ethical value of something unless one knows what it is. Where the National Lottery is concerned, this is not quite as straightforward as we might expect (although it is not impossible). The problem is that many descriptions of the Lottery are themselves morally loaded. For example:

1) “The National Lottery gives people a chance to win money, while also supporting national arts and charities.”

2) “The National Lottery is a tax on the poor, exploiting the fact that it is their only chance to break out of a poverty trap, and using the proceeds to subsidise expenditure which mostly benefits the rich.

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