Does a lottery stack up as an efficient method?
CHARNWOOD Borough Council’s proposal to introduce (yet another) lottery in support of the voluntary and community sector does not deserve to pass unquestioned.
At the same time a measure of sympathy must be felt for the borough, obliged by repeated government cuts to turn to fund-raising in an effort to maintain its support of valued local projects.
In this instance it is proposed that 60 per cent of ticket sales will pass to good causes whilst 40 per cent less the unspecified expenses of an external management company will go into a prize pot.
A relatively few lucky winners will prosper at the expense of the majority. So what’s wrong with that? People don’t have to buy tickets and where is the harm in having a modest flutter with loose change? No-one wants to be labelled a killjoy.
Unfortunately some, already deep in debt, may spend money they can ill afford in a desperate bid to ease their plight. It will surely be argued that it is not the task of a ‘nanny’ state to protect the feckless from their folly. Yet if government remains indifferent to their fate, is it less than compassionate for authority to place further temptation in their way?
A lottery endorsed by the borough must surely be a good risk. Or is it?
Does a lottery stack up as a potentially lucrative form of gambling? Hardly so. Professional gamblers would never venture their capital on random chance when horse racing for example allows the whole stake to be taken into account and they can exercise judgement by reference to the field, the rider, the going and form to minimise the risk of loss.
And does a lottery stack up as an efficient way of supporting good causes? Not when little more than half of ticket money is so directed and not necessarily to the cause the ticket buyer might prefer.
Better to subscribe directly to the enterprise of choice boosting the contribution by Gift Aid whenever possible. Are we incapable of giving to charity without the inducement of reward?
Public-spirited members of the community give their time and energy freely in the service of the less fortunate. Should they suffer the indignity of having to bid for a share of funding less than wholeheartedly subscribed by losers in a lottery when they might expect to be supported as a matter of course?
Finally it must be asked whether government policy is well conceived if it leads to reliance on the purchasers of lottery tickets when responsibility might be more equitably spread across a wider section of the community.
It seems that we are fast becoming a nation of gamblers. What does that say about our life and times?
David Stevenson Anson Road, Shepshed