You may have to spend money to make money, but North Carolina taxpayers won't want lottery administrators spending too much advertising their tickets.
Taxpayers shouldn't be surprised to learn that the state lottery administration spent $10.9 million on advertising last fiscal year. Persuading the public to buy into the long-shot lottery gamble is an expensive endeavor.
When legislators approved the lottery four years ago, they specifically curbed advertising in two key ways. All money for advertising must come from the statutory share of lottery proceeds set aside for administration -- 8 percent of total revenue. And lottery advertising cannot be persuasive in nature, only informative.
So far, Executive Director Tom Shaheen and his staff have kept administrative costs below 5 percent. They've done a good job in that regard.
The legislative mandate on the nature of lottery advertising is an odd one. Advertising, by its nature, is designed to induce consumers to action -- notably, to buy a product. Lottery critics have asked how lottery advertising, therefore, could not be inherently persuasive.
In other states, lottery advertising has taken a hard-sell approach, with the airwaves full of promises of everything from riches to happy marriages.
Here the ads have been soft sell, appearing to do little more than remind us that there is a lottery.
Shaheen, however, recently credited advertising with an increase in ticket sales, according to McClatchy Newspapers.
The hard times for the North Carolina lottery have not come yet, however. In most states, lottery administrators only cranked up advertising fever after ticket sales lagged. Advertising works, and the more one advertises, the more sales typically rise.
Here we haven't seen the kind of serious dips in lottery revenue that have harmed other state budgets. But if sales do lag, there will be calls for more advertising, rest assured of that, and there is room within the statutory 8 percent administration limit.
Legislators should be looking at the nearly $11 million spent on advertising last year and anticipating future problems.
One such problem could be a push for an increase in lottery advertising.
That would not be socially desirable.
The lottery is a form of gambling and lottery advertisements plant the idea in the minds of our children that gambling is acceptable behavior.
Legislators must find a way to limit lottery advertising. Legislators are too beholden to the lottery's steady stream of cash, so they are unlikely to cripple the games with an advertising ban, but they can curtail its growth. One solution may be to freeze advertising at today's level.
Lottery advertising is not a good influence on our young people. Legislators must come to understand that.
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