The Illinois Lottery’s slogan is “Anything’s Possible,” and, for some winners of its state-run games of chance, that phrase now carries a double meaning.
On Wednesday, officials said payouts for winnings over $600 will be delayed because the lottery’s coffers are empty.
That isn’t what’s going on. This news item has been being misrepresented for weeks now.
The problem is that the state comptroller doesn’t have the authority to cut the lottery cheques until the budget is passed. Illinois is no more “out of money” than any other state; there’s just a bureaucratic block on the money being released until the legislature passes a budget. This has nothing to do with Illinois’ finance and everything to do with a dysfunctional legislature.
Hi Daniel. Perhaps you should take a look at the Illinois Debt Clock here.
http://linkis.com/F8WjI
Cheers,
Still, it is interesting and speaks volumes about incompetence when a lottery can’t pay its winners.
A properly run lottery ought to be a self-sustaining corporation and not directly dependent on the state comptroller at all.
It should make more than enough money to pay the winners, finance its own operations and still send off a nice fat dividend cheque to the state treasury.
Trust government to screw up gambling.
They must have too many “Wynne’s” running the lottery!
Illinois’ debt-to-GDP ratio and debt per citizen is within a percentage point of lots of other states, including California and Massachusetts. Again, this isn’t about the finances. It’s just a bureaucratic quirk.
Yes, Illinois’ finances *are* Califontario levels of bad, but this doesn’t have anything to do with that.
More (accurate) information.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-lottery-payments-delayed-met-0828-20150828-story.html
Oh?
Illinois?
Say no more.
Budget impasse? The lottery account is self funding. All of the money that players pay for lottery tickets shouldn’t be going into general revenue, prize money is supposed to be set aside for prise payout.
Where do you think the $25K-$600 prize money comes from, a budget that isn’t supposed to know how high the prizes are going to rise to by random chance?
Or are the prizes fixed ahead of time along with the lottery itself?
It looks like Ontario and soon to be Canada.
Classic bureaucracies, can’t even run a lottery.
Oldest ponzi scheme ever, almost impossible to not make a profit.
But government steals before the prize is paid out, rather than just trousering the excess tickets sold.
Funny only way you can lose money is by having your marks lose trust in you, so you can no longer sell 5 times as many tickets more than the prize amounts to.
And these are the guys who told us “Gambling is bad”
Except when we do.
“Theft is bad, except when…
Fixing a lottery is criminal..except when..
Hell lets put these guys in charge of oil production, the shortages they will cause will up the world price overnight.
Thatcher/socialism.
How much deeper senior Obama
Winning the lottery without the taxman taking 90% of it
Suppose I sold tickets to a raffle, didn’t pay out the winnings, and then the next week was selling tickets to another raffle. Would I be charged with fraud?
Yer darn right I would.
If the state doesn’t pay them forthwith, then the winners should start a class action against the vendors of lottery tickets. Sue all those gas stations and convenience stores and whatnot en masse. Until the winners are paid, the vendors are participating in fraud. RICO applies, too. And then all the vendors have standing to turn around and sue the state.
Judas Priest on a tricycle, you people don’t read, do you? The problem isn’t that Illinois doesn’t have the money to pay out the lottery winnings. It says so right in the article I linked to: the state comptroller does not have the legal authority to cut a cheque unless there is a budget in place. There isn’t a budget right now, so Illinois could have ONE HOJILLION DOLLARS and it still wouldn’t be able to pay out the lottery prizes because the comptroller legally cannot sign cheques right now.
Ed, the winners have been considering exactly that because Illinois has been running on “special orders” and other bureaucratic dodges to keep funding the state’s operations and there’s no reason they couldn’t do so for the lottery winners.
“Judas Priest on a tricycle, you people don’t read, do you?”
Wrong. It’s that I don’t believe the explanation.
In short, I think they’re lying.
Duh… translation the bureaucrats steal the ticket money before the winnings are paid out.
Otherwise the condition you are arguing could not exist.
If the state lottery commission is an “independent agency”.
However it is a government bureaucracy then the suckers deserve everything they get for trusting the bureaucrats honesty and integrity ..
The Illinois lottery should be a completely separate legal entity from the government and should be paying winnings from its own funds. The continued selling of tickets when winnings aren’t being paid out is fraud. I suspect that the Illinois government’s payments from the lottery have not stopped, given its funding issues (schools, etc.). As Oz said, I would be suspicious of the explanation.
Methinks Daniel Ream protesteth a little too much.
Does he have some personal interest in this matter, or is he just another shill and apologist for Democrats who’ve mismanaged the finances of the State of Illinois?
I know my advice is targeted to a very small group of people, but if you ever win big in the lottery: TAKE THE LUMP SUM OPTION, even though it pays just a fraction of the jackpot. Because if you accept the annuity payment option, you are subject to the whims of the Socialists running the project. When they run out of other people’s money (as they always do), any contracts become immediately null and void.
Really? They have no legal method for paying winners. Are they going to pay interest on the delays? Since they presently have no legal method to pay, why are they continuing to sell tickets?
If anyone but a ‘government’ did that, it would be fodder for the bunko squads. As it is, it should be prosecuted under federal racketeering statutes.
That would offer insufficient opportunity for graft. Remember, we’re discussing Illinois.
Illinois lottery now- Social Security tomorrow!
This reminds me of a story Jim Bouton told in his book Ball Four. He bought a ticket in a raffle Mickey Mantle organized. The prize for winning was a ham. Bouton won, only to be told that there was no ham. According to Bouton, Mantle explained that that was one of the hazards of entering a game of chance!
Daniel Ream=Bitterly clinging to his cargo cult of “Progressivism”, his pipe full of Hopium and his Illinois state pension.
That’s a good comeback. We can put it on bumper stickers:
Illinois: all the fiscal discipline and stability of California and Massachusetts.
Illinois just another liberal utopian paradise.
That would offer insufficient opportunity for graft. Remember, we’re discussing Illinois.
When you are comparing yourself to California and Massachusetts, you are well and truly screwed.
When you are comparing yourself to California and Massachusetts, you are well and truly screwed.
When you are comparing yourself to California and Massachusetts, you are well and truly screwed.
Daniel is exactly right, and the debt clock is irrelevant. The lottery by definition runs at a profit, because the prize pool is defined as a percentage of the takings. The money to make the payments is there, but there is no legal authority to make them, becuase of the constitutional principle (which you’d think everyone here supported) that the government may not spend money the legislature has not appropriated.
Still, it is interesting and speaks volumes about incompetence when a lottery can’t pay its winners.
Rubbish. The lottery has more than enough money to pay its winners, it just can’t legally do so because it’s part of the state government, and we have fought wars and beheaded kings for the principle that the government may not spend money that the legislature has not appropriated.
A properly run lottery ought to be a self-sustaining corporation and not directly dependent on the state comptroller at all. It should make more than enough money to pay the winners, finance its own operations and still send off a nice fat dividend cheque to the state treasury. Trust government to screw up gambling.
It IS self-sustaining, it DOES make more than enough money to pay the winners, exactly as you described. But it isn’t an independent corporation, it’s a state agency, so it has to obey the constitution. Surely that’s a GOOD thing, and not screwed up at all.
Budget impasse? The lottery account is self funding. All of the money that players pay for lottery tickets shouldn’t be going into general revenue, prize money is supposed to be set aside for prise payout.
The lottery IS self-funding. The prize pool is defined as a percentage of the takings, so it’s impossible for it to lose money. But it’s a state agency. Are you willing to give up the constitutional principle that NO state agency may spend money without an appropriation? Are you?
Funny only way you can lose money is by having your marks lose trust in you, so you can no longer sell 5 times as many tickets more than the prize amounts to.
John Robertson, you’re an idiot. It doesn’t matter how few people buy tickets, the lottery CAN’T lose money, because the prize is defined as a percentage of the takings. And it ISN’T losing money. Saying that it is is a LIE, and conservatives are supposed to be against lies.
Suppose I sold tickets to a raffle, didn’t pay out the winnings, and then the next week was selling tickets to another raffle. Would I be charged with fraud? Yer darn right I would.
No, you wouldn’t. So long as you had the money and declared your intention to pay the winners as soon as you legally could, you could go on selling tickets unmolested. The state HAS the money; it just can’t legally pay it. Do you want it to break the law?!
Wrong. It’s that I don’t believe the explanation.
In short, I think they’re lying.
Then you’re an idiot. What part of the explanation doesn’t make sense to you? What part isn’t OBVIOUSLY true?
If the state lottery commission is an “independent agency”.
It is an independent agency. But it’s still an agency. Do you want it to be exempt from the constitution?!