Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Gambling and Neoliberal Rot - How Our Most Regressive Tax Flies Under the Radar: Citations Needed Episode 63
Adam Johnson, Nima Shirazi
06 Mar 2019
🖨️ Print Article

Local and state governments spend $1 billion annually to market the lottery, and in return Americans spend $70 billion each year on lottery tickets alone, 6 times what they spend going to movies. Almost all of it comes from people with low incomes, and the lower their incomes are, the more people play the lottery. When unemployment goes up, so do lottery sales. Lotteries marketed to the poor have taken the place of tax revenue extracted in more egalitarian ways.

Hosts Nina Shirazi and Adam Johnson talk to John Balzarini, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Delaware State University and Les Bernal National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling.

gambling
tax policy

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Europe's Other Self, Stuart Hall, 1991
    19 Nov 2025
    “The story of European identity is often told as if it had no exterior.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Somalia: Farmaajo Returns
    19 Nov 2025
    Farmaajo, a hugely popular Somali politician who has never been favored by the US, is widely expected to seek the presidency in Somalia’s 2026 election.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Day 40-something pedophile-protecting government shutdown
    19 Nov 2025
    "Day 40-something pedophile-protecting government shutdown" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright , ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    COPing Out In Brazil: How The United Nations Reduces its Legitimacy More Than Global Emissions
    19 Nov 2025
    Despite being held in Brazil, a nation with the largest Black population outside of the African continent, COP30 has continued a thirty-year pattern of sidelining the specific climate threats to Afro…
  • Jon Jeter
    In South Africa, White is the New Black: The ANC’s Failures Opens the Door for the Return of a Government Led by Settlers
    19 Nov 2025
    Decades of unmet promises and endemic corruption have eroded the ANC's legitimacy, creating a surge of support for a party led by South Africa's white minority.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us