Lottery news from http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/
Shopkeeper Tommy Ali offers just about everything, from boiled peanuts to tennis shoes, at his convenience store in northwestern Brunswick County.
But there's something he sells more of than any other location in the county - North Carolina lottery tickets.
All sorts of people come in to buy tickets, he said, but he knows that many are poor. Some consider it a lucky store, because of tales of a $10,000 winner on the lottery's first day in April.
"But, these are mostly locals - they don't come out of their way" to shop, he said. "They come and buy them with handfuls of change. They're people who live from check to check and whatnot."
Both he and the N.C. Education Lottery declined to say how much his store has sold.
The lottery is popular across the state, but the new North Carolina lottery appears most popular in the part of the state that can least afford to play - rural Eastern North Carolina.
According to an analysis of sales data from the first three months of the N.C. Education Lottery, tickets sold fastest in the eastern third of the state during April, May and June.
Statewide, the lottery sold $223.1 million in tickets. That's $25.70 in tickets for every person in the state.
In the 41 counties roughly east of Interstate 95, sales during the first three months of the lottery amounted to $28.93 per person, or nearly $10 per month.
Per person sales were slower in the 36 counties roughly between I-77 and I-95, which include North Carolina's metropolitan midsection. Sales per person were even less in the 23 mountain counties in the west.
The eastern region, which as a whole leads the state in low incomes, high school dropouts and other measures of poverty, also saw a disproportionate amount of sales.
Eastern North Carolina has 27.8 percent of the state's population, but saw 35.2 percent of all ticket sales during the lottery's first quarter of operation.
Fourteen of the top 20 counties, ranked by sales per person, are in Eastern North Carolina. About 17 percent of people in those 14 counties live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census. Nearly 15 percent of the state's population is poor.
Also, sales per store were slightly greater in the east, where the average location sold nearly $40,000 in tickets over those three months. Per store sales were about $37,000 in the state's midsection and about $31,000 in the mountains.
In Wilmington, one of the stores with the highest sales is nestled between two auto repair shops less than a mile from the Houston Moore public housing complex.
On a busy Saturday afternoon, most people walked out of the Greenfield Food Store at 509 Greenfield St. with water, energy drinks, beer or cigarettes. A few elderly men bought lottery tickets at the neighborhood store, but were reluctant to talk about their habit.
William Johnson, a 60-year-old retired Coca-Cola delivery man, said he plays the lottery three to four times a week.
"I have to feel for my luck," he said, sitting in his black Ford pickup truck outside the store. "You just can't jump in just like that."
Even when he jumps in, he doesn't always like the outcome.
"It's all a joke to me," he said. "It's like hittin' and missin', and I don't like to miss. I put more money in than I get out."
Another Wilmington store with the highest sales is the Shell gas station at North Third and Red Cross streets, next to a U-Haul rental shop. Across the street to the west sits the Wilmington Police Department headquarters. A block to the east sits North Fourth Street with its vacant storefronts and hair salons.
For years, polls have shown support for the lottery across North Carolina, but the greatest support has come from the easternmost third of the state. A November 2005 poll by Elon University found support for the lottery strongest in the east, where it was supported by 72.5 percent of residents. Support was weakest in the western part of the state, but that figure was nearly 65 percent. In the Piedmont, North Carolinians supported the lottery 69 percent of the time.
"There is a certain aspect of selling hope," said Mike McLaughlin, who as editor of the journal N.C. Insight has researched and published several studies on the plight of Eastern North Carolina. "It is not surprising that the East plays more."
Lottery officials and supporters argue otherwise. They say that lottery players may buy tickets in counties other than where they live and that traffic patterns - particularly people on the way to the coast from the Piedmont - may account for some of the sales patterns.
The figures extend a debate that has gone on in the United States for decades and was central in the discussions in the N.C. General Assembly last year when the lottery was created: Do state lotteries hurt the poor?
There is a long-standing debate among researchers on the personal impact of lottery spending. Some argue that it is a middle-class game and point to research showing the largest group of players earns about $40,000 a year.
Studies have shown that nationally, about half the adult population - rich and poor alike - plays state lotteries.
But levels of spending vary. High school dropouts spend more per year on lottery tickets than those with diplomas or college degrees. A national study found that heavy players, perhaps 5 percent of all who buy tickets, account for more than half of all lottery sales.
But if the question is whether spending on lottery tickets puts a greater burden on the poor, the answer for economist Charles Clotfelter is yes.
Research suggests that most players are looking at the chance of winning big money, but have few illusions about their long chances. In a 1998 survey of lottery players, Clotfelter and colleague Philip Cook concluded that "the popularity of the lottery does not appear to be the result of a mistaken belief that it offers a good bet."
But, research, Clotfelter said, has shown that the poor spend a greater portion of their income on tickets than their wealthier neighbors.
In 2005, the federal government's definition of poverty was any person younger than 65 who made less than $10,160 a year, or an older person who took in $9,367. A family of four is considered poor if its income is less than $15,735, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Two hundred dollars a year - the national per person average for lottery ticket sales - is 2 percent of the annual income of a person on the poverty line and 0.4 of a percent of a $50,000 salary.
"If you are going to raise money using a lottery, you have to get used to the fact that poor people are paying a disproportionate amount of it," said Clotfelter, who is the Z. Smith Reynolds professor of public policy studies at Duke University. "That's just the way it is."
Lottery officials and supporters disagree.
Other factors, said lottery spokeswoman Pam Walker, can affect county-by-county sales figures.
She also argued against a correlation of sales with poverty by pointing out that counties with the highest per-person sales figures - Nash and Wilson counties - are in the busy Interstate 95 corridor.
Walker also pointed to the most common factor in lottery sales - they are sold at locations that also sell gasoline.
"I live in Harnett County, but buy my gas and work in Wake County," she said. "If I could buy lottery tickets, I would buy them where I buy gas. There are many more people like me."
State Sen. Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover, said the lottery helps people overall.
She sponsored her own lottery legislation in 2005 before pushing the proposal that eventually became law.
"I supported a lottery because it had very tough restrictions on advertising and because my constituents supported it," she said. "And, because it will do a lot for education."
Lottery profits, which will be about 35 percent of total sales, will go to fund four education programs - class-size reduction, learning for 4-year-olds, college scholarships and construction.
State lawmakers expect the lottery to produce $425 million for these programs during its first full budget year. Lawmakers intended for this to be on top of what the state already spends on education. This year, the General Assembly created an oversight board to track how lottery dollars are used.
The other issue, she said, is personal choice.
"We have no control over who buys lottery tickets, except for minors," she said.
Back at Tommy's, Leroy Williams, 78, of Leland, held $15 worth of lotto tickets in his hand.
Williams, who said he draws Social Security benefits and works, said he spends $30 to $40 on tickets every week, or about $2,000 a year.
Before North Carolina started a lottery, he spent the same amount playing the lotto in South Carolina.
"I play anything," he said. "I'm trying to win."
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