Report: Many lottery tickets sold in poor neighborhoods

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 | 9:45 a.m.

MILWAUKEE -- Nearly one-third of all Wisconsin lottery tickets sold in the southeastern part of the state during the 2003-04 fiscal year were purchased in poor neighborhoods, although there have not seen as many big payoffs there as in the rest of the region, according to a newspaper's analysis.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Wednesday that neighborhood retailers sold $1.1 million worth of lottery tickets in the 53233 ZIP code area, where the poverty rate is more than 47 percent, with winnings of $11,100 in prizes of $600 or more.

The newspaper said that $54.8 million worth of lottery tickets were sold in 18 ZIP code areas of southeastern Wisconsin with the poverty rates of 10 percent or more, or 32 percent of total sales in the entire region of $171 million.

The return in big payments in the higher-poverty ZIP codes was about 6 cents on the dollar, while it was more than 10 cents in the other 76 ZIP code areas that make up southeastern Wisconsin, the Journal Sentinel said.

Mike Edmonds, director of the Wisconsin Lottery, said that just because people buy a lottery ticket in a high-poverty area doesn't mean they live there.

"When I'm outside of Milwaukee County, people say, 'All your winners are in Milwaukee,' and when I'm in Milwaukee County people say, 'All your winners are outstate,' " said Edmonds. "That's a common complaint; but, in the end, it's all random. There's no way I, or anybody at the lottery, could influence the location of winners."