Gamble like a good New Yorker

Lane Filler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.

With the Mega Millions jackpot for tonight's drawing predicted to be $330 million, it seems everyone is encouraging us to gamble. And by everyone, I mean the State of New York. That's what it's come to in a nation where, more and more, governments make their money encouraging us to indulge in vice and every sensual pleasure is either outlawed by the state or owned by it.

Until 1967 this state generally made it clear that lottery operators (then called numbers runners) were criminals who preyed on the weak and mathematically challenged and should be tossed in the pokey. Then New York decided lotteries are wonderful, character-building enterprises and assigned itself the task of preying on the weak and mathematically challenged (oddly, under the guise of funding education), adding glitzy commercials and patronage positions to the mix.

States ban vices that ought to be legal (in my book, if there's no victim, there's no crime), and own and run vices that ought to be private enterprises. They seem unable to adopt the middle ground of letting vice be legal but not state-owned, and taking their cut via taxes.

For 100 years, betting at racetracks in New York was legal, but betting on the same events away from the track was a crime. Then, in 1970, New York said, "What we should do rather than chasing bookies and putting them in jail, which is exhausting, is be bookies, which is more relaxing, and easier on the calves and glutes." Thus was the OTB born.

Now, the state-owned New York City Off-Track Betting Corp. has gone out of business, leaving us to wonder, "How the hell does a bookie lose money?" It's simple. Any bookie would lose money if the people who let him run the book said, "But you have to hire my uncle, Pete, and my nephew, Terry, and give them pensions and health care. And give all your profits to my friends from the country club, who say they're going broke what with owning all those thoroughbred racehorses and flying their jets from track to track."

The best examples of all are places like Pennsylvania, where the state owns the liquor stores. They're forced to entice people to drink, so they can make money, so they can afford to hire lots of highway patrol officers to catch people who've been drinking. And pay high Medicaid bills for people who drink too much. And pay for school programs that urge kids not to drink. Which is expensive. So they have to sell even more liquor.

States that own liquor stores end up promoting the decidedly mixed message, "Don't drink and drive, but definitely drink. Drink like sobriety is a particularly virulent strain of cooties and Scotch is the cure."

Where governments own the vice, they can't merely satisfy the existing demand. The states' expenses increase and they must have more profit from their gambling and liquor rackets. Then they have to create special prices, commercials and other enticements to persuade residents to spend their money on lottery tickets and hooch, rather than food, clothing and shelter for the kids.

Where governments encourage vice, they are corrosive. Where governments ban vice, they are intrusive. Government's only role in vice, as with any business, should be to regulate and tax it. The way things are going now, though, we can only hold our breath in anticipation of the day states decide prostitution isn't immoral and they want to own the brothels, which should at least provide some fascinating commercials.

As it stands, though, we must march out and buy our Mega Millions tickets for tonight's drawing. Sure, you might rather spend the bucks on food or a book for your child, but with a $10-billion budget deficit looming, gambling is our civic duty.