Les Bernal is national director of Stop Predatory Gambling, an organization headquartered in Washington, D.C.

“Through its advertising and marketing of lotteries, state governments have turned a nation of small earners — who could be small savers — into a nation of habitual gamblers,” Bernal told Fox News Digital by email.

Bernal also said that over the next eight years, the American people are “going to lose more than $1 trillion of personal wealth to commercialized gambling, at least half of which is being extracted by state lotteries.”

He added, “If you could just cut that figure by 50%, there’s no other policy reform that comes in 1,000 miles of that to make a bigger difference in the lives of everyday Americans.”

[“Extracted” is doing a lot of work in this argument. Taxes are “extracted” under threat of force; lottery tickets are free-will purchases. Maybe not the wisest use of money, of course, and the state involvement in such systems are wide open for criticism. So too are policies that continue to unlock new ways to legally gamble, both at the state and federal levels. However, at least this choice of funding for government is left to the citizens. — Ed]