Last year, U.S. lottery sales totaled $70 billion.

When I read this stat back in May, I thought it had to be a mistake. That's an average of about $300 per U.S. adult, and half the country doesn't even play the lottery!

When you look closer, the lottery sales figures become all the more stark. Of the half of U.S. adults who do play, 4 out of 5 are light players, spending about $10 per month. That leaves roughly one tenth of the adult population to account for all the remaining sales.

In concrete terms, these 20 million U.S. adults, who are disproportionately from low-income households, spend thousands of dollars on the lottery per year. For everyone else, the lottery is a novelty, one which provides a minor-yet-welcome addition to the public funds. For this group of heavy players, as well as their families, the lottery is a destructive, predatory tax, paid for with money that would otherwise be spent on food, clothing, and rent.

Now, I bet I know what you're thinking. Everyone knows that it's poor who play and it's genuinely very unfortunate. But the lottery is voluntary, and every person needs to take responsibility for his or her own actions. Nobody forces anyone to play the lottery, so it's not a tax.

To argue that the lottery is voluntary is to miss the point

Here is the predominant view our country has of the lottery: it's voluntary so it's not mine or anyone else's business. However this perspective overlooks an important distinction.

The lottery is not the problem. The problem is the government, and a profit motive that prevents it from doing its job.

In a sense, the lottery is not unlike tobacco. It's voluntary. It's potentially addictive. And whoever chooses to participate bears the responsibility for the consequences. Even so, it would be pretty strange if the government got into the tobacco business, packed its product with double the nicotine, and starting running a "you should be smoking" ad campaign. Throw in a few misleading slogans, target the ads to disadvantaged households, and what you have looks a lot like our state lotteries.

Our government exists to protect the welfare of its citizens, as it says in the very first sentence of the U.S. Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare , and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Why the government has no business operating a for-profit business:

It's the government's role to protect the people from anti-competitive business practices. In the case of state lotteries, the government bans competition, awarding itself a monopoly and the ability to offer the worst payouts in the gambling universe.

Another role of the government is to protect consumers from misleading ads. In contrast, the government exempts lotteries from FTC Truth in Advertising laws, allowing itself to violate the same rules it enforces on private business.

The government has a duty to inform and educate. It runs ads discouraging drunk driving, smoking, illicit drugs, and driving without a seat belt. But when it comes to lotteries, the government runs ads expressly to encourage risky behavior.

Currently, the government is encouraging people to buy a financially-risky and potentially-addictive product so it can turn a profit at their expense. Operating a for-profit lottery creates a conflict of interest with the government's very reason for existing . To see why this conflict of interest is a problem, consider the facts.

For all intents and purposes, the income states earn from lotteries is a tax.. In economic terms, the states' inflated pricing is no different from the excise tax they imposes on fuel. That's not a theory, it's an economic fact, corroborated by many people smarter and more qualified on this topic than I am.

Of all the options states have for raising money, why implement one that is so heavily regressive? Last year, state lotteries netted $19 billion of income. For households in the lowest income bracket, that's a significant amount relative to their collective annual income. As state budgets go, it's a drop in the bucket.

Privatize the lottery and let the government regulate

If you enjoy playing the lottery, and think it's good fun for few dollars a month, more power to you. There's nothing wrong with the lottery. Let's open it up to private companies who will compete with better games and payouts to win your business.

Without a conflicting profit motive, the government will warm to the idea of extending to problem gamblers the help and education they deserve. And unlike today, the government would be there to regulate dishonest business practices, such as promising people prize money then skipping out on the bill.

Jackpot Winners Suing Illinois Lottery As State Budget Impasse Blocks Payments, 9/9/2015.