I’ve just been going through my e-mails on this topic (too many to reply to individually, alas). Disappointingly, most seem to agree with Ramesh on state lotteries (they are opposed), although a number of the more moderate Ponuru-ites (Ponurians?) would favor competing privatized lotteries (with better odds than the government now offers – worse than the Mob’s apparently). The state would then tax the companies that run the lotteries.

Here’s an interesting comment from a reader in LA:

“It is often said that lotteries are a tax on stupid people, but more accurate is to say that it is a tax on the poorly educated. I view state-sponsored lotteries as a way the government capitalizes on its own failure to educate people properly. Statistics and probability are some of the worst taught subjects in school–if they are even taught at all. For the state governments to fail at teaching this basic subject and then to rake in money because of [this] failure is, in my view, immoral.”