The Distributional Burden of Instant Lottery Ticket Expenditures

Thomas Garrett

Public Finance Review, 2012, vol. 40, issue 6, 767-788

Abstract: This article examines the distributional burden of different price-point instant lottery games. Theoretical reasons exist for expecting higher-priced instant lottery games to be less regressive than lower-priced instant games. Using county-level data on sales by price point for six states, the empirical results show that higher-priced instant games are less regressive than lower-priced games. In addition, regressivity is rejected in favor of proportionality for some instant lottery games. The analysis also reveals that counties having a higher-percentage of low-income households have higher sales of lower-priced instant games, but differences in the distribution of household income have no significant impact on higher-priced instant sales. Taken together, the findings suggest that large differences in the distributional burden of individual instant games are masked if aggregated instant-lottery sales data are used.

Keywords: state lotteries; instant games; burden; regressivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:40:y:2012:i:6:p:767-788

DOI: 10.1177/1091142112441358

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