As Fla. lottery sales slow, schools stand to lose

I guess the crooks in government, called politicians, forgot that the original concept of the lottery was to support education, not replace it.  Having said that, they immediately started not providing funds for education. Remember the tobacco fiasco?  The states were supposed to help smokers stop smoking.  Instead they started spending like $10M lottery winners - stupidly!  Tobacco money is gone, so the state government started raising taxes to support their habit of spending money. Now that people are no longer spell-bound, to shiny lure, called the lottery, the state government doesn't want to slow down their spending habits.  The lottery may not be a tax, but you can bet your booty, that is a tax supplement.  When the sales drop, tax increases will soon follow.  As other have said before me, shine the lure,, with bigger payouts on scratch cards, and in-state daily drawings, and the addicts in the state capital will once again be passified.

Many Floridians spend their lottery money next door in Georgia playing MM.  So Florida, wake up!  Bring MM to Florida and keep your Dollar$ at home! for Florida schools.

"Lottery sales are still expected to grow from this year's $1.28 billion." 

IMO I think the state is making a ton of money, considering the current economy.  What do they expect with all the foreclosures, high unemployment and inflation? 

Lollipop, maybe we should start a poll.  I disagree that many people in FL drive to GA, but I could be wrong.  From my neck of the woods, it would take me an entire day to get to GA and back plus around $100 in gas. I can see driving from Jacksonville or the Panhandle, but FL is a very long state.  Considering the MM odds, it would make more sense to blow $100 on Lotto tickets instead (and save me the backache.)   The odds for Lotto are less than 1:23M compared with 1:176M and the current $25 million jackpot sounds great to me.

I posted in Feb that I didn't think the new Lotto bonus would work.  The Powerplay idea makes more sense.  People realize that by spending an extra buck their odds aren't going to increase. If they have a second chance drawing or increase the lower tier prizes, then maybe more people will check the $2 box.

People living in Key West don't drive to GA and ask the clerk for $2 worth of Mega Millions tickets twice a week?

"Considering the MM odds, it would make more sense to blow $100 on Lotto tickets instead (and save me the backache.)" 

I live in a Mega Millions state and hardly play it because I only have 1 in 40 chance of winning anything. There probably are people that live close to the GA border that play when the jackpot is huge and maybe a few people in the Orlando or even Miami do too until they figured out they had to make a second trip to cash a $5 ticket after spending $100 or more for gas.

"I posted in Feb that I didn't think the new Lotto bonus would work."

The bonus bet is for the people who drive drive from Miami to GA twice a week to play Mega Millions.

   Those freakin' crooks. You pick the winning numbers and they the government take about half. They're the biggest mafia.

I think they lost a lot of momentum with the lottery when they changed it to the pick your jackpot thing, 1,2 or 3 bucks.  Really who wants to lose 3 bucks when you can only lose 1? LOL

Tennesse should take heed of this news release of slower revenue.

There was just a news article about tenn having a surplus in lottery money and looking to figure out what to do with it. Save it for the dry spell.

Tenn could put the excess in interest bearing accts with the interest to go to school budget shorfalls.