cindyabs

Georgia had it's share of controversy about theirs due to the bible thumpers but it is a good thing for higher education-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOPE_Scholarship

leviramsey

Give it time... it's only in the past few years that Sunday sales (of beer, wine, or liquor) have been legal.

snowbunny

Yes, me and the office mates.

scrubbedexpat091

The IRS will always tax your winning however not all states do. For example if you win the jackpot in California's lotto the state does not tax your winnings, but the IRS will but the IRS is federal.

GoldenGate

As the Federal Government doesn't want people to gamble across state lines, It is all the more reason to play the Massachusetts lottery. For the sake of a few dollars, I like telling the feds, I’ll spend my money as I please, thank you very much! The US Government has a bee in it's bonnet about gambling.



The US should set-up a national lottery, imagine how much that would raise for good causes, as the US population is around 300 million. The UK lottery has raised billions, the UK population is around 60 million. Some of the revenue could be spent on returning service personnel. Many are waiting for treatment, but Veterans affairs keep finding excuses not to assist them.

GoldenGate

"Most lotteries allow out of staters to get a ticket....."



The Massachusetts lottery permits non-residents to play without actually going to the state to buy a ticket. It has a subscription service available to all US residence via telephone. I believe it is the only state to do so. Sorry, I should have stated it more clearly.

Bob

that's true, though not late enough for it to be much use....and at least a grocery store in a chain is allowed to sell beer and wine, handy as trader joes nearby is the one in the chain allowed for the state, wholefoods ain't that far either, but that town is the opposite direction and a much smaller store to the local...all a bit of a hassle really.

leviramsey

On the federal return, you can also deduct your gambling losses up to the amount of your winnings.

It's rather complex to do, and may not actually cut your tax bill by much, unless you're betting sports or horses big time; you're either going to deduct them as an itemized deduction (thus forfeiting the standard deduction) or you'll have to claim to be a professional gambler (in which case you get to deduct the losses as a business expense). The latter course, however, subjects you to self-employment taxes for social security and such, and the IRS generally will only accept such a profession if you have no other employment... the only real way to claim to be a professional gambler is to be one of those degenerates in Vegas who goes from sports/race-book to sports/race-book or poker room to poker room and ends up betting tens of thousands of dollars a day.

I used to know a guy who arbitraged baseball betting in Vegas in the '80s and '90s.... he was known as Pedals because he'd be seen every afternoon riding his bike like crazy down the Strip in 110 degree heat to get a great price on the Red Sox or whatever right before the first pitch. He made a few hundred thousand a year, but spent most of it on hookers.

ugacrew

My sister had her undergraduate degree financed by the state of Georgia by proceeds of the Georgia State Lottery. We were residents of the state and my sister at the time qualified for the Hope Scholarship which allowed those of a certain GPA to qualify for it. As long as they maintained it then they had all tuition and books paid for by the fund. This undergraduate degree lead to a professional post grad degree here in the state of Missouri. So it does go to something worthwhile. I would have taken advantage of it but my priorities were a bit different then.

GoldenGate

I like to way the Massachusetts State Lottery distributes it's revenue to local communities. The UK should allocate some lottery funds to local councils.

WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO?
http://www.masslottery.com/wherethemoneygoes-text.html

Bob

what it doesn't tell you, it's part of the state budget, so what the towns get from the lottery, they get dinged from the state budget...

GoldenGate

For the sake of $100, it’s worth a shot.

What worst that can happen? You could loose your $100, so what!

A $100 won't make you or break you.

Either way the good people of the great state of Massachusetts will benefit.

If you’re no in you can't win!

GoldenGate

If you live in state without a lottery, You can play the Massachusetts lottery games by subscription; there are no residency restrictions.

Ray

A $100 a week to throw away
we have a rich boy here ..not all of us can do that ..

another bloody yank

I get paid tomorrow, but I couldn't give you $100 today to save my life, much less piss it away in the lotto. You ever notice how many people are in line at the Quickiemart buying $20-$100 worth of lottery tickets that look like they should be buying food instead? People talk about rednecks like they're the scourge of the earth, but the way to identify true white trash is by observing that they may live in a shithole of a house/trailer, and they may not have enough money to get their car fixed or pay their rent and their kids may subsist on poptarts, baloney and Kool-Aid, but they will always find the money to buy cigarrettes, beer and lotto tickets and the cable/satellite bill is the only one that will never go unpaid. How many people do you think used that extra Gov't check this year to buy an enormous flat screen TV when they really needed to spend that money on necessities?