Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Gambling and Neoliberal Rot - How Our Most Regressive Tax Flies Under the Radar: Citations Needed Episode 63
Adam Johnson, Nima Shirazi
06 Mar 2019
🖨️ Print Article

Local and state governments spend $1 billion annually to market the lottery, and in return Americans spend $70 billion each year on lottery tickets alone, 6 times what they spend going to movies. Almost all of it comes from people with low incomes, and the lower their incomes are, the more people play the lottery. When unemployment goes up, so do lottery sales. Lotteries marketed to the poor have taken the place of tax revenue extracted in more egalitarian ways.

Hosts Nina Shirazi and Adam Johnson talk to John Balzarini, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Delaware State University and Les Bernal National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling.

gambling
tax policy

More Stories


  • sovereign media launch
    Sovereign Media
    Anti-Imperialist Coalition Sovereign Media Launches Today
    01 Oct 2025
    Today, we launch Sovereign Media, an anti-imperialist coalition bringing together voices from the Global South and the Global North who refuse to bow to censorship or empire.
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Trump Declares War on the U.S.
    01 Oct 2025
    Donald Trump has declared war on the “enemy within” and put the military on notice that they will mete out the same treatment domestically that they dispense around the world.
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Trump “Peace Plan” A Cynical Cover to Continue Campaign of Palestinian Extermination
    01 Oct 2025
    The so-called "peace deal" does not offer peace; it demands surrender. The Trump plan is the manifestation of a colonial logic that believes might makes right.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    LETTER: To My People, Assata Shakur, 1973
    01 Oct 2025
    “There is and always will be, until every Black man, woman, and child is free, a Black Liberation Army.”
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Mother Earth Is Angry!
    01 Oct 2025
    "Mother Earth Is Angry!" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us