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Lottery Advocacy April 26, 2013
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From: Justin Escher AlpertTo: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; "[email protected]"<[email protected]>; sen Weinberg <[email protected]>; "[email protected]"<[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; "[email protected]"<[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; "[email protected]"<[email protected]>; "kevin.o'[email protected]" <kevin.o'[email protected]>;"[email protected]" <[email protected]>
BCC: Jasey Asw. D. O., asm McKeon, Bob Ingle, [email protected], [email protected],[email protected] [email protected] Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 11:17 AM Subject: Privatization of the Marketing of the New Jersey Lottery
Dear Treasurer Sidamon-Eristoff:
Let me get this right... we need to "re-energize the lottery brand"(http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/04/nj_treasurer_says_christies_lo.html)? So, Isuppose that the problem is that people, after forty years of playing the Lottery with the
statistical odds stacked up against them, they are slacking off and not playing enoughLottery? And this Northstar conglomerate, they are going to be able to aggressively court new players? I don't suppose that we will have commercials with a Sam Waterson-type talking abouthow, "The Lottery is an important part of the high-risk portion of a well-diversified portfolio,"will we? I mean, the Lottery has been sort of a regressive tax, hasn't it been? How will we judge Northstar's efforts? If we begin to see lotto card vending machines in every supermarket andToys 'R Us, will that be a win for us? Attached is a picture of the lotto machine vending $20cards at the 7-Eleven at Newark Airport. Will it be a win for the State if we get $40 cards inthere? Should there be some sort of cap... I don't know, you know... maybe no lottery cardshould cost more that X number of times the hourly minimum wage?
Who put together the revenue models for your privatization plan? Are they the same economistswho decided that an $8.50 minimum wage would drag the State's economy down? Does youreconomic model dynamically score the projected increase in Lottery revenues coming from theless-educated segments of our population... you know... like, " If Marcus can get a steady thirtyhours per week of work at $7.25 per hour, and spends $40 per week making impulse purchases from a Lottery vending machine, what kind of drain will that be on the local economy when thatactivity is replicated throughout Marcus's community?"
We know that gambling triggers the same pleasure sensors in the brain as does cocaine and sexand music and food and whatever it is that you might have a passion for (or be addicted to). Thecompanies that make slot machines have hired psychologists to determine how to best exploit people's weaknesses. If Northstar intends to similarly make use of modern scientific method, isthere a clause in their contract that will require those high level Ph.D.s to be employed in NewJersey? How do we determine if it is in fact the State itself that has become addicted to Lotteryrevenue?
Treasurer Sidamon-Eristoff, does your position as State Treasurer limit your ability to accountfor the ethical considerations of privatizing the marketing of the State Lottery, even if you knowthat it is going to exploit people who are less-education that us? Would it be wrong for public
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officials to let religious principles guide their decisions? Let us for a minute model what wouldhave happened if the State-employees who had been in charge of marketing the Lottery weremore successful in their efforts... Would the State have learned how to motivate people? Couldthe State have taken some of that intelligence and applied it to other areas... say... maybemarketing State-provided social welfare and mental health services? By outsourcing this
marketing effort just because it has failed, are we outsourcing the State's ability to grow andlearn from its successes and mistakes in this area?
Treasurer Sidamon-Eristoff, thank you for giving us some insight on your economic models. Ifwe can build some broad bipartisan support for your privatization plan, I am sure that the NewJersey Lottery will be a shining example for others to follow as The Garden State gambles itsway to prosperity. Thank you, Treasurer Sidamon-Eristoff, for your economic and moralleadership.
Warm regards,
Justin Escher AlpertLivingston, New Jersey
