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.
Zohran Mamdani’s democratic socialist vision won NYC’s primary but lost Black voters to scandal-plagued Cuomo by 20 points, exposing the left’s racial blind spot even as Wall Street prepares to spend…
Trump’s ‘peace deal’ between Rwanda and the DRC is a corporate resource grab disguised as diplomacy, rewarding Rwandan war crimes while U.S. investors stake claims to Congo’s coltan mines.
Capitalism’s accelerating crises demand a pan-American labor revolt against Trump’s plundering, bipartisan imperialism, and the neoliberal NAFTA. José Carlos Mariátegui’s century-old warnings are…
The 2025 NATO summit exposed a dying empire escalating wars and austerity to hide its collapse while backing genocide in Gaza and illegal attacks worldwide.
"Did New Yorkers say, No Mo Cuomo; No Mo Turkey Trot with Papa Cop?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
