Duke professors Charles Clotfelter and Philip Cook offer this letter to News & Observer readers this morning:

The statement from the executive director of the state lottery quoted in the Feb. 29 N&O – “What we’d like to do here is get a lot of people playing a little bit, not a few people [playing] a lot” – was refreshing for its candor and admirable for its disavowal of a marketing strategy that would take advantage of problem gamblers.

Still, it is disheartening to know that it is the state’s policy to recruit new players. (The way you do that is you go into new markets, you introduce games to folks who have not played before.) We do not know of any principle that justifies the state creating customers for an entertainment product that it alone produces, especially if that product has as little intrinsic worth as gambling.

Furthermore, we doubt that the lottery really would turn away those big spenders who, for whatever reason, do decide to spend a lot on the new game, even if it could. The typical pattern in lottery games is that the top 10 percent of all players account for half or more of all sales.

About a year ago, a John Locke Foundation report urged the General Assembly to scrap the state lottery. Even earlier, this forum has explored a key conundrum associated with efforts to boost lottery sales.

[G]rowing lottery sales figures represent a mixed blessing for state officials.

They must be pleased to see more money flowing into the state coffers. But I have a hard time believing that they feel good when they realize: “Hey, more North Carolinians are gullible this year!”