Supporting local providers supports responsible land development. When you buy local, you give those with local open space—farms and pastures—an economic reason to stay open and undeveloped.

Eating local is better for air quality and pollution than eating organic.

The impact of “locavores” (as local-food proponents are known) even shows up in that Washington salute every five years to factory farming, the Farm Bill. The latest version passed both houses in Congress in early May and was sent on May 20 to President George W. Bush’s desk for signing.

The rules by which gambling games are played sometimes serve to confuse the relationship between the components of the game, which depend on skill and chance, so that some players may be able to manipulate the game to serve their own interests. Thus, knowledge of the game is useful for playing poker or betting on horse racing but is of very little use for purchasing lottery tickets or playing slot machines.

Gambling, slot machinePcb21the betting or staking of something of value, with consciousness of risk and hope of gain, on the outcome of a game, a contest, or an uncertain event whose result may be determined by chance or accident or have an unexpected result by reason of the bettor’s miscalculation.

Games that involve no skill whatsoever, like craps, Punto Banco baccarat, and roulette, are always statistically stacked against the player because of the way the casino has set them up.  There is no particular way to win at any of these games, aside from sheer dumb luck or tampering with the cards or equipment involved.  Be this as it may, many websites do claim to hold the one special secret of winning at craps or roulette.  Because these games lack the element of skill, the systems involved are essentially betting systems.  And none of them work.

The idea that the money we’ve already spent is somehow sunken into our game is completely false – that money is gone.  The amount of money you’ve put into a slot machine has no bearing on the outcomes of successive spins.  The odds are what the odds are.  This error, called the Sunk Cost Fallacy, is related to the Gambler’s Fallacy in the sense that both fallacies involve the assumption that a certain amount is becoming “due” – the idea that the more you play a slot machine, the “closer” you’re coming to the next big jackpot.  In reality, each spin of the slot machine has exactly the same chance of hitting a winner or the jackpot as the previous spin.

Most gambling systems and strategies are based on several basic errors in logic – errors that some of us commit every day, whether we’re gambling or not. 

Drugs and alcohol can lend a festive atmosphere to an activity that isn’t always pleasant, and the numbing effect of these substances can keep people playing, even when they really should be counting their losses and going home again. Addictive substances can also numb the pain of a loss and allow people to forget their troubles, at least for awhile. For some people, the act of gambling and the act of substance abuse become intertwined and tangled, with one activity supporting the other in an endless loop. The chemistry might underlie the behaviors, but the two behaviors might become so connected in the user’s mind that it’s difficult to perform one act without beginning the other. In time, the two actions just seem to belong together.

On the surface, gambling and substance abuse don’t seem to have much in common. Much of the connection becomes clear, however, upon a closer inspection of the changes that take place deep within the body and the brain when a person engages in one or both of these behaviors. For example, many substances of abuse cause the brain to release large amounts of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Similarly, the brain releases this same neurotransmitter in response to a big gambling win. No substance enters the body, but the chemical change is the same. When this chemical floods the body, the brain interprets this as a signal of pleasure and joy. In time, however, the person needs to take larger and larger amounts of drugs or obtain bigger and bigger wins in order to bring about the same response.

In fact, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reports that the rate of drug or alcohol abuse is six times higher among those who gamble pathologically, when compared to people who don’t gamble. The interaction is complex, but understanding the issue could allow people to get the help they need in order to leave both behaviors behind.

How low? First off, you only get $1.4 billion if you accept the payout over 30 years. If you want it all at once, your bounty drops to $868 million. Then you gotta pay taxes. I’m going to assume you’re not already rich, and therefore do not have a cabal of Randian lawyers standing between your money and the government. Which means you’re losing about 40 percent at the federal tax rate. Oh and also, the IRS withholds an extra 25 to 28 percent because you struck it rich gambling.

And for the jackpot, those odds never change. Your odds of winning tomorrow’s $1.4 billion (and counting) jackpot are exactly the same as they were of winning in November, when the pot was a mere $40 million. Which means—at the very least—you’re better off buying a ticket now than you were then. This gets into something statisticians call “expected return.” Simply put, this is your odds of winning multiplied by the potential payout. If the odds were perfect, and you could never lose, then the expected return would be $40 million: a fantastic investment. If you buy one Powerball ticket, giving you a one in 292 million chance of winning $1.4 billion, your expected return is almost $5 on that $2 ticket—a great investment. But wait: Powerball’s expected return is actually way, way lower than that.

The one-in-292-million odds come from all the different combinations you can win by picking the right five white balls—in any order—out of a drum of 69. “Multiplied by 26, because for every five-ball combination you’ve got 26 different associated Powerballs,” says University of Buffalo statistician Jeffrey Miecznikowski.

In California, for example, journalists exposed that welfare recipients used their welfare debit cards to withdraw $1.8 million in the span of eight months. And in Pennsylvania, a survey found that 48 percent of those below the poverty line planned to gamble at a newly built casino.

A survey done by the Consumer Federation of America found that one out of five Americans thinks the best way to achieve long-term financial security is to play the lottery. And while casinos are a different form of gambling, people who gamble may have similar high hopes.

Now, with casinos closer to peoples’ homes, more Americans are able to go to casinos and can go more often. In 2011, the manager at a Pennsylvania casino was quoted saying that his customers visited an average of 4.5 days a week.

Today, however, state governments work with casino managers in the name of revenue, which they justify by allotting the money to projects that are meant to enhance communities. In reality, however, governments’ partnership with casinos ultimately harms communities. Unlike other “sin taxes,” like those on tobacco, alcohol and, in the near future, possibly soda, which act to discourage destructive behavior, casino taxes are collected with the government’s encouragement, through partnership and advertising.

People have been gambling for thousands of years. But in recent decades, casinos in the U.S. have seen enormous growth. Long after Nevada legalized casino gambling in 1931, New Jersey legalized it in 1976. Since then, casinos have rapidly sprung up, and today there are about 900 casinos throughout 38 states nationwide.

But as with the liquor industry, much if not most of the gambling industry's revenue come from addicts. Grinols estimates that 52 percent of revenue at the typical casino comes from problem gamblers, while an Ontario study put the figure at 35 percent and a Louisiana one at 42 percent. So even if gambling takes more money from the middle-class than the poor, it largely takes that money from middle-class people who aren't exactly rationally willing to spend it.

And the bankruptcy finding has been replicated as well. The St. Louis Fed's Thomas Garrett and Mark Nichols found that Mississippi riverboat gambling increases bankruptcies not just in Mississippi, but in counties outside the state where many residents gamble in Mississippi. The effect was largest in neighboring states, with the Mississippi casinos responsible with a 0.24 percentage point increase in bankruptcy filings. Interestingly, other casinos — such as Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and so forth — didn't have statistically significant effects on other areas' bankruptcy rates.

The Baylor's Earl Grinols, University of Georgia's David Mustard, and the University of Illinois' Cynthia Dilley found that 8 percent of crime in counties with casinos was attributable to their presence, a crime increase that cost residents, on average, $65 a year.

The authors speculated on a number of reasons why gambling is worse in poorer neighborhoods. “It may be that people who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods do not see many role models of financial success achieved through conventional means,” says John W. Welte, PhD, RIA senior research scientist and a study co-author. “Therefore, gambling may be viewed as one of the few opportunities for financial advancement, and perhaps provides the lure as a means for easily gaining money.”

In areas with the highest “neighborhood disadvantage” – determined by census factors such as the percentage of people who were unemployed, received  public assistance, and/or live in poverty – more than 11 percent were problem gamblers, compared to just 5 percent in neighborhoods ranking in the top fifth of economic advantage.

Based on representative telephone interviews with nearly 5,000 people, ages 14 to 90, in the United States, the study found that problem gambling was twice as likely in neighborhoods with the highest levels of concentrated poverty compared to neighborhoods with the lowest poverty levels.

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The poorer the neighborhood, the higher the risk for problem gambling, according to a study from the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions (RIA).

Online gambling casinos earned $29.3 billion in 2010, an increase of 12 percent. Morgan-Stanley projects that online gaming in the United States will be worth $9.3 billion by 2020. Currently, some states allow online gaming, including Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware.

NCPG notes the annual cost associated with gambling (crime, addiction, and bankruptcy) is $17 billion. Approximately 76 percent of problem gamblers are likely to have a major depressive disorder, according to the NCPG. The NPCG also says children of problem gamblers are at higher risk for a number of behaviors including problem gambling, tobacco use, and drug use.

About 40 percent of people with a gambling problem started gambling before the age of 17.

Approximately two to three percent of Americans meet the criteria for problem gambling. That's around 6 million adults and about a half million teens.

In Minnesota, a bipartisan bill from Republican state Rep. Chris Swedzinski would require 25 percent of lottery billboards to be dedicated to a warning about the odds of winning, cautions about addiction and information on where problem gamblers can seek help

A Stateline analysis of state sales data shows how many states rely heavily on lottery "super users." Three states (Rhode Island, South Dakota and Massachusetts) had 2014 lottery sales that topped $700 per capita. While 10 states had per-capita sales below $100, per-capita sales for all state lotteries averaged almost $250.

ut many anti-gambling advocates and skeptical lawmakers point to the staggering sums not as measures of success, but as signs of a deeper problem. They argue that lotteries have grown so big they're preying on problem gamblers and worsening some of the social ills — poverty, homelessness, and more — they were designed to address through new revenue. Expanding the business into new sales avenues is the last thing states should be doing, they say.

Forty-three states and the District of Columbia operate their own lotteries, up from 37 states plus D.C. in 1999. In times of shrinking revenues and yawning budget gaps, states have turned to lotteries to stave off spending cuts.There is a simple reason for their growth: They pay. Twenty-one of the states with lotteries saw more than $1 billion in sales in fiscal year 2014, with New York leading the way at $9.2 billion, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries. Altogether, sales topped $70 billion. That's more than 10 percent of the total state revenue in states' collective budgets for fiscal year 2014. Sales averaged about $1.6 billion per state and D.C.

Around the same time last year, all of the nation’s top grocery retailers also dropped the product from their ground beef. Costco was one of the only major players who stayed out of the controversy because they never adopted the product.