The Allocation of Lottery Revenue to Education in Florida, California, Michigan, and Illinois

Abstract

There exists a persistent misperception on the part of the public concerning the intended purposes and actual use of lottery funds. It is suggested that a politics of misperception exists that results from the current conservative political beliefs and actions which hold that the public sector, represented by inefficiencies, bloated bureaucratic structure, and misuse of tax monies, needs to be reduced. To avoid attacks on its legitimacy, government has found that policy tools, such as lotteries, are ideal Generating public funds through lotteries gives the appearance of meeting needs of education while masking the relative drop in more direct tax-based public finance.