Of all the taxes in the world, I have no real problem with lotteries.  I can see there is an argument for needing to have clearer advertising on what the house &#x27;take&#x27; is on the he tickets, but most people don&#x27;t know how much tax they are paying on their fuel, electricity, alcohol etc.<p>Yes, it&#x27;s regressive on the poor as these people overwhelming play the lottery. But so are alcohol and cigarette taxes.  The point of those taxes is to raise revenue from undesirable activities as they both have inelastic demand curves and need to be curbed if possible for the good of society.<p>Perhaps a useful improvement woudo be to cap the number of lottery tickets a person can buy.<p>Certainly it makes me depressed to see how much selling lottery tickets dominates retailing in small stores.  That means a lot of money is being raked in.