The lottery winners hail from Arizona and Missouri. They’ll be splitting a $550,000,000 jackpot — probably choosing the lump sum payout, with proceeds to both of them estimated at $200,000,000. The event is inescapable on the news and it’s ubiquitous in all forms of media.

But it comes at a gut-wrenching expense. The reality is that it’s a tax (75-80% of all lottery proceeds go to the lottery crack dealers who skim some off the top and dole out the balance to government accounts.) A friend shared an observation this morning that as he bought a ticket for the fun of it last night near Philadelphia, two ladies clothed in rags — potentially homeless — skipped at least one meal to purchase $40 worth of lottery tickets. To me, that qualifies as a gut-wrenching tax.

Let’s compare the prospect of netting a winning lottery ticket to sitting down at the…