Play at pump sounds like a bad deal to us

The California Lottery wants to make it easier for you to play — and lose your money.

As part of a pilot program, motorists can buy tickets at the gas pump when they fill up their tanks. And they can use their credit or debit cards. Rather than playing with the cash in their pockets, they can let the lottery reach straight into their bank accounts.

It’s a horrible idea, apparently targeting a younger generation that tends to carry less cash and that may not understand the abysmal odds of winning.

It’s easy to ignore the lottery when the tickets are behind the counter, but the gas pump pitch will be in your face every time you fill up the tank.

It puts greater temptation in front of gambling addicts and the poor, who already spend a greater portion of their income on the lottery than others. The screen offer also will inconvenience those who have no interest in silly games that hardly anyone wins.

For nearly a year, the lottery quietly has been rolling out a pilot program at gas stations in the Sacramento and Los Angeles areas. The only participating station in the Bay Area is a Valero on Winchester Boulevard in Campbell.

After inserting a credit card, customers have to choose whether to play the lottery and buy gas, or just buy gas. That’s yet another screen to punch through before starting to pump fuel — and another temptation to waste money. To play, you have to insert your driver’s license to prove you’re at least age 18, then pick the game and choose the amount — up to $20 a day or $50 a week. Players can punch in their phone numbers for a text notification of whether they won.

Lottery officials say all this will add only about 30 seconds to a purchase. That’s hard to believe. When there are lines, the rest of us will be waiting our turns while lottery players try to read their screens in the glaring sunlight.

The computer picks the numbers and spits them out with the gas receipt. Yes, you have to buy gas. You can’t just use the pump as a drive-up slot machine.

There are plenty of places for lottery players to buy tickets. At gas stations, they can just go to the counter inside.

And if you’re not a gambler and find that extra step annoying when you’re in a hurry, you can always find a station that just sells gas at the gas pump. What a concept.

It’s easy to ignore the lottery when tickets are behind the counter, but the gas pump pitch will be in your face every time you fill up. It puts more temptation in front of the poor, who spend a lot more of their income on the lottery than others.