Gambling With Taxes: Britain (1968)

The Daily Telegraph, 1968.

ʻThe first recorded state lottery in England was in 1566 “towardes the reparation of the havens and the strength of the Realme and towardes such other publique good works”.

Later objects included the ransom of English slaves held in Tunis, the financing of plantations in Virginia, the building of Westminster Bridge and the British Museum . . . until lotteries became a regular source of general revenue.

The last was in 1823, after a select committee of the Commons had reported that by the effects of the lottery “idleness, dissipation and poverty are increased, the most sacred and confidential trusts are betrayed, domestic comfort is destroyed, madness often created, crimes, subjecting the perpetrators of them to the punishment of death, are committed, and even suicide itself is produced”.

ʻThe present House of Commons is less alarmed, and yesterday approved the principle, if not the form, of a private member's Bill to re-establish a national lottery.

Since, the argument ran, the state tolerates the present volume and variety of gambling, and since it is not above taking a cut on the stakes (from 25 per cent on pools to 2-1/2 per cent on horses, varying not according to moral disapprobation but according to what it is thought the market will bear), it may as well go into the business itself and promote a popular form of voluntary taxation. The moral neutrality of taxing activities promoted by others is compromised if the state itself enters into profitable promotion.

But the general view is that gambling is not inherently immoral: it becomes so, like much else, only if indulged in without restraint.

And it will doubtless be claimed that whatever arrangements are made they will sufficiently limit the possibilities of abuse.

ʻIt is the expectations rather than the morality of the advocates of a state lottery which are questionable. It is an extremely wasteful way of raising revenue, though admittedly less painful than most, at least at the moment of payment.

If it is to compete with other forms of gambling well over half the takings have to be distributed in prizes. Of the rest expenses and commissions take anything up to 20 per cent, leaving a profits/expenses ratio of 5: 3 in France, 1: 1 in Ireland and about the same in Switzerland.

The Inland Revenue can do better than that and so, in fairness, do some of the Scandinavian lotteries. As for the intention to earmark the proceeds for worthy causes, experience, from the road fund to parking meters, does not inspire confidence in the permanence of any such undertakings. The Treasury has a prejudice against earmarked revenues which it would be unwise to underrate.ʼ

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