Forced Gambling instead of Taxes?

Darkest

Banned
How would a system like this arise, and would it work?

There are no taxes. However, you are forced to play a certain amount of time at the casinos every week, and gamble away so much money. All of your losses are given to the government. The gambling is designed only a little less than fairly, so that the government can make a profit. These casino areas are paid by the government, and all the money made by the casinos goes to the government.

This is a wierd twist to socialism, as it does spread money around, but it does it randomly. It also might make it so that people aren't as angry at paying their taxes. The system is also designed to get people hooked to gambling, to get addicted to it so that they can give the government more and more money.

What would happen to a nation run on such a system?
 
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

I dunno, this doesn't sound too much differnt that the National Lottery. People pay a fiver maybe for tickets and generally say oh well, it goes to good causes when they lose. A couple of times a year they may win a minor prize, not enough to wipe out the money spent to date but enought to halve it perhaps. And then the Chosen Ones win a bigger sum, each week, a mere fraction of takings but enough to make them independently rich.

Grey Wolf
 

Scomerger

Why does it sound like a kleptocracy to me? (I know some of you may not agree with me), but it isn't a good system for any nation to use in my opinion. Do people like to be forced to go to casinos every week just to play and lose so the government can get its greedy hands on little green paper that you call money? Taxes may be the same, but it's more flexible and not as addicting as gambling...
 

Max Sinister

Banned
Jorge Luis Borges once wrote a story about a fictional Babylon where the lottery makers have the idea to include a few "anti-jackpots": If you get an unlucky lot, you'll be whipped. People don't quit in his story though (there are very few unlucky lots), but look down on the "cowards" who don't dare to play. Later, everything in the society is decided by lottery - every important decision, plus some ridiculous ones.
 
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Tom_B

In the stated form I don't see how this could happen. But what might be plausible is some program whereby a certain percentage of people's income --say 40% is sent into Instrument X which is a bizarre hybrid of bond and lottery ticket. No interest is paid on the bond and it matures in 10 years (and only if you don't die so it functions like an estate tax) but in exchange for no interest there is a chance at a jackpot. This sort of crackpot compromise is the sort of things legislators are famous for.

Tom
 

HelloLegend

Banned
Gambling is the fairest form of tax ever.

The Govt, private companies (not only Native Americans) should be the ones running the casinos.
 
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NapoleonXIV

Banned
Well, if you let Private Enterprise run the Casino and then tax them we call it Nevada.

It appears that compelling people to play would be redundant.

Las Vegas appears to be doing all right.

OTOH Atlantic City....

In Sim City you can get extra money from legalised gambling, but then you start losing it to programs to combat addictive gambling, many maintain the same relationship exists in real life.

Government approval also makes AG the hardest form of addiction to treat. The former drug czar who gambled away 7 million dollars while writing "The Book of Virtue" have never gone in for treatment or even admitted he has a problem. Nor does anyone else, until they lose their house, car and the kid's college money. It is, if you're in the proper state, a perfectly legal activity.
 

tinfoil

I've always considered gambling, where it is well understood that the 'house' has the edge, to be a form of 'stupidity tax'.

When the 'house' is the gov't, this is even more pronounced. Most lotteries skim off 40% (or better) of the proceeds. In many cases, much of this revenue was put into the gamblers' hands by government assistance.


Why do the bleeding hearts consider it to be society's problem when a person lacks the will power to resist gambling in casinos and goes broke? The same government encourages people to build houses using high leverage mortgages, and nobody moans when they go bankrupt over the payments.
 

Jesse

tinfoil said:
I've always considered gambling, where it is well understood that the 'house' has the edge, to be a form of 'stupidity tax'.

When the 'house' is the gov't, this is even more pronounced. Most lotteries skim off 40% (or better) of the proceeds. In many cases, much of this revenue was put into the gamblers' hands by government assistance.


Why do the bleeding hearts consider it to be society's problem when a person lacks the will power to resist gambling in casinos and goes broke? The same government encourages people to build houses using high leverage mortgages, and nobody moans when they go bankrupt over the payments.
Click to expand...
You can call it a "stupidity tax" if you like, although this particular brand of stupidity is strongly dependent on a person's understanding of statistics, which is obviously going to be affected by education level so it'll disproportionately be a problem for people born poor. And as long as you're endorsing social darwinism, why not have the government legalize those nigerian email scams and other types of "phishing" schemes, and take a cut of the profits? After all, only the "stupid" will fall victim to such scams.
 

abas

Tom_B said:
In the stated form I don't see how this could happen. But what might be plausible is some program whereby a certain percentage of people's income --say 40% is sent into Instrument X which is a bizarre hybrid of bond and lottery ticket. No interest is paid on the bond and it matures in 10 years (and only if you don't die so it functions like an estate tax) but in exchange for no interest there is a chance at a jackpot. This sort of crackpot compromise is the sort of things legislators are famous for.

Tom
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Similar system was used in Soviet Union. People were forced to buy bonds. Some years later had been organized lotteries.
 

tinfoil

Jesse said:
You can call it a "stupidity tax" if you like, although this particular brand of stupidity is strongly dependent on a person's understanding of statistics, which is obviously going to be affected by education level so it'll disproportionately be a problem for people born poor. And as long as you're endorsing social darwinism, why not have the government legalize those nigerian email scams and other types of "phishing" schemes, and take a cut of the profits? After all, only the "stupid" will fall victim to such scams.
Click to expand...
Read whta I wrote, please:
I've always considered gambling, where it is well understood that the 'house' has the edge, to be a form of 'stupidity tax'.
Click to expand...
 
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