Yes, but the state doesn't bottle 'Ohio' beer or market it's own brand of cigs. The state of Ohio does operate a large organization called the state lottery commission. Lots of advertising goes out daily for the lottery.

You can legislate morality by the way. Pretty much all the laws on the books legislate morality. As for the 'people are going to do it anyway' argument... We just voted for big casino's in Ohio that are not run by the state. Also, Bingo halls are not run by the state of Ohio.

Following you logic, how many 'immoral' activities would you be willing to license and regulate? Pot, coke, underage drinking, violent porn, driving while talking on a cell phone, abortion, grafetti?

The state also licenses the sale of tobacco and alcohol. It is a means to make sure the state gets their piece of the pie. If it weren't the lottery, these same people would be dropping money at the local bingo hall, participating in illegal numbers games or crossing state lines to gamble.

Prohibition in the 1920's should have taught us you cannot legislate morality. The business of illegal drugs is booming despite law enforcement's best efforts. There has been no slowing down the business of prostitution either.

The prudent move is to legalize much of the "immoral" activities, license and regulate them so the state would collect taxes on the trade and work towards educating the community, i.e. cigarettes.

The fact that the State of Ohio is engaged as a giant casino still amazes me. The state lottery system does little more than take money from poor, under educated and desperate people. I see the addicts hanging around circle K going back to their car to 'scratch another one' or dropping 30 or 40 bucks on super lotto on Wednesday. The fact that the state is the ringmaster of that sad circus amazes me.

Would the state be wise to start selling pot or porno if it was nominally, 'for the schools'?

The state lottery system is a tax on people too uneducated or addicted to understand the laws of statistical probability. It's a tax on desperate people who can only see 'hitting the lottery' as way to end their current painful circumstances.

You know what they say, 'Odds are, you'll have fun..."

To a degree you are correct. The lottery profits are going to the schools as we were originally told when it was first voted in ages ago. But, the mistake came when the voters didn't read or understand completely the issue they were voting for. It clearly stated that the EXCESS profits were to go to the schools. Notice, it doesn't say 'all' the profits, just what ever they decide to claim as 'excess' profits.

And, as Msmetz stated, state dollars are withheld when lottery dollars are applied. For example, let's say a district is scheduled to receive $100,000 from the state. If the lottery money provides $25,000 to that district then the state says, 'well, we only need to provide $75,000.' The school doesn't get the $25,000 as 'bonus' money. The state considers it part of the school's standard funds.

To correct it, we need to make the state change the lottery wording to something like '50% of all profits go to education funding.' We also need to make the lottery money be additional money above what the state provides.

The problem is that for every dollar the lottery gives the schools they cut the funding from the states general fund at least an equal amount.

Because we let them...