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On January 31st, Illinois Lottery retailers commenced selling Powerball tickets. Previously, Illinois residents came to Indiana to purchase Powerball and when the Powerball jackpot swelled to large amounts, lottery sales in border cities like Hammond were brisk and bustling.

This was a nice source of non-Indiana resident money for Hoosier Lottery. Now Illinois folks can stay in Illinois and buy Powerball tickets there, they won’t be coming to Indiana to purchase tickets and the Hoosier Lottery will likely see a future reduction in sales revenue from northwest Indiana lottery retailers.

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Which directs our attention to the Indiana General Assembly. In the past 20 years the Legislature grew increasingly addicted to gaming revenue whether its lottery proceeds, parimutuel betting (i.e. horse tracks), or casino gaming. After paying for some state government spending program, using gaming revenue to balance the books in the short term, or buying political cover (then-Gov. Evan Bayh’s plan of using lottery proceeds offsetting license plate taxes for example), the Legislators of both political stripes can go home after the long sessions and proclaim to their constituents they didn’t raise your taxes. Yes, that statement would be true but how long will the gaming revenue continue at its projected level while the spending the gaming revenue was supposed to support continues or even increases?

With the continued “down economy” having an effect on disposable income, are people continuing to wager their decreasing disposable income at casinos and buying lottery tickets? I would guess not but I may be wrong.

2011 brings another budget year in Indiana. Will the Legislature attempt a trip to the gambling well looking for another bucket of spending money? Will there be anything there? Will land based gaming finally come to fruition allowing Indianapolis to score its long sought downtown casino or one of the Lake Michigan casinos relocate to its desired high traffic location at the junction of I-80/94 and I-65? The last time I looked, Indiana has the 2nd highest amount of non-Native American gaming in the US only exceeded by Nevada and just barely ahead of New Jersey. How much can gambling increase before we see the point of diminishing returns? Have we already reached this point and nobody is willing to admit it? Once this point is reached will theLegislature see the necessity to cut spending, or will they raise taxes? Its no coincidence the budget year is opposite the election years in the Indiana General Assembly. Just sayin’

Someone once told me they were not very comfortable with Gov. Daniels plan when initially proposed of raising cigarette taxes to pay for the child health care program. While I personally felt that using a “sin tax” like cigarettes to pay for that was OK by me, I’m not a smoker so it doesn’t bother me personally. However this person’s reasoning made sense. If theLegislature uses a sin tax such as cigarettes to fund a health care program the increased tax on cigarettes also carries a desired effect of decreasing the use of tobacco products. However with the desired effect of decreasing tobacco use the revenue from the cigarette tax also decreases which will require an eventual review of the health care plan’s funding mechanism. When gambling revenue saturates and eventually decreases, the same principle will apply.

That’s the thing about crack – or any addicting substance for that matter – there is the euphoric “high” that requires more and more substance abuse or the addict comes off the high and “crashes and burns” which is worse than the substance abuse itself. Of course there is always going into rehab. Perhaps thelegislature should seek some financial abuse rehab and break its addiction to gambling revenue.

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