I find it funny how in Germany the state lottery advertises itself on TV but needs to add the info that "Gambling can be addictive."
For example, this ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0-pKS_zx5E is made by "LOTTO 6aus49", which is "LOTTO.de", which is "Toto-Lotto Niedersachsen GmbH", which is the lottery company of the state Lower Saxony.
To me this is as if the state would place TV ads for wine which a state-owned winery produces, like "Landesbetrieb Hessische Staatsweingüter" also known as "Hessische Staatsweingüter GmbH Kloster Eberbach".
And the lottery numbers are then presented in the prime time news in the publicly funded television.
You do know that lotto is state run, and all profit that isn’t redistributed to players is given to charity (mostly deutsche sporthilfe, who fund a lot of sports who would otherwise have trouble running).
Lotto and sports betting in its modern incarnation are very different.
Lotto was created so that people’s desire for gambling is diverted towards charity.
How does operating expenses like salaries and bonuses look like? 10k bonus for every life ruined? I'm always worried about cronyism and corruption with this kind of monopolies.
When I was a cashier the state owned lottery monopoly had a training session for us on how to operate the lottery machines, and it was really dystopian how most of the time was spent on encouraging us to make upsells with sales pitches and being happy about gambling.
I don't get why you are using the lottery ticket revenue as a baseline when in reality the lottery company mostly acts as a payment processor or intermediary. It'd be like arguing Visa only gives 2% to shareholders and shareholders should be owed all money transacted over the Visa network.
I don't think this really disproves their post? They said the profit that doesn't go to players goes to charity. Probably a smidge of the 10.3% that goes to the business and the lotto becomes profit, but out of the other 89.7% everything after taxes goes to either the players or the charity. Close enough; if they're off it's only by a couple percent.
Governments make tons of money on gambling/lotteries. So they keep it running. This shows how much they don't care about making positive impact to people's lives.
Advertising state lottery on TV is just a way for politicians to funnel money to their buddies in the marketing agency and TV. I guess they get some positive coverage for that or w/e. It's one of the most obvious signs of corruption imo. It happens in Poland as well and it's infuriating when you are a tax payer in that country.
For example, this ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0-pKS_zx5E is made by "LOTTO 6aus49", which is "LOTTO.de", which is "Toto-Lotto Niedersachsen GmbH", which is the lottery company of the state Lower Saxony.
To me this is as if the state would place TV ads for wine which a state-owned winery produces, like "Landesbetrieb Hessische Staatsweingüter" also known as "Hessische Staatsweingüter GmbH Kloster Eberbach".
And the lottery numbers are then presented in the prime time news in the publicly funded television.