Public Interest in Veterans’ Lottery Tickets

• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17708561
• Author: David M. Yaskewich
• Date: 01 July 2018
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Public Interest in

Veterans’ Lottery

Tickets: Evidence From

Consumer and Voter

Behavior

David M. Yaskewich

1

Abstract

While many states earmark lottery proceeds for education programs, a few states

have started allocating portions of lottery revenues toward state-provided services

for military veterans. The decision to shift funds toward veterans’ services and away

from other programs creates an opportunity to study society’s willingness to help

veterans when faced with real trade-offs. Using county-level data from three states,

I examined public interest in veterans’ lottery tickets by analyzing consumer and

voter behaviors. In two states that sold veterans’ tickets, IA and TX, a similar set of

county-level variables explained variation in both veterans’ and nonveterans’ ticket

sales. However, there were a few cases in which sales patterns differed across ticket

categories. Election results from a statewide referendum in MO to create a veterans’

lottery ticket suggested that opposition came from counties with a large proportion

of college graduates and high population densities.

Keywords

lottery, public opinion, veterans, voting, ballot initiatives

1

Department of Economics, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, MO, USA

Corresponding Author:

David M. Yaskewich, Department of Economics, Southeast Missouri State University, One University

Plaza, Mailstop #5845, Cape Girardeau, MO 63701, USA.

Email: dyaskewich@semo.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2018, Vol. 44(3) 408-435

ªThe Author(s) 2017

Reprints and permission:

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17708561

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While most government-sponsored benefit programs for veterans are funded at the

federal level, state governments have used their own tax revenues to fund a variety of

benefits for veterans. Simila r to the intention of federal benefi t programs, state

efforts have tended to target elderly veterans with health problems and younger

veterans who lack financial maturity. A common and expensive service is the oper-

ation of state-run nursing homes for veterans. Some states also provide veterans with

other services such as financial assistance for first-time home purchases and educa-

tional costs at public colleges, one-on-one assistance with job searching and apply-

ing for government benefits, and the maintenance of veterans’ cemeteries. The

demand for these services likely changes over the next decade along with the age

profile of the U.S. veteran population. As ongoing conflicts continue to generate new

post-9/11-era veterans below age 35, albeit at a declining pace, aging veterans from

the Vietnam era and earlier cause modest growth in the proportion of veterans at or

above age 65. According to projections by RAND Health (2015), the two largest

groups of veterans by 2024 come from the Vietnam and post-9/11 eras, which

account for 29%and 24%of the total veteran population, respectively.

In an effort to provide a stream of supplemental funding for veterans’ services, a

small number of states have enacted laws requiring a portion of revenue from lottery

ticket sales to be allocated for this purpose. Currently, these laws have been adopted

by only six states that include IL, IA, KS, OR, TX, and WV.

1

Proposals to introduce

veteran-specific lottery tickets have failed to generate enough support in other states

by both lawmakers in a state legislature (PA) and voters in a statewide referendum

(MO). Some opponents of the use of lottery tickets to fund veterans’ programs have

been concerned about the potential trade-off with funding other state programs, such

as K–12 or college education programs.

Recent efforts by states to help veterans with lottery proceeds have created a

unique opportunity to study how society shows supports for veterans when presented

with real trade-offs. Previous studies by social scientists have examined the possi-

bility that society discriminates either in favor of or against veterans compared to

nonveterans in a variety of environments. Examples of some studies include anal-

yses of how employers treat veterans who are employees or job applicants (Da´vila &

Mora, 2012; Kleykamp, 2009), voters treat veterans who are political candidates

(Karsten, 2012; McDermott & Panagopoulos, 2015; Teigen, 2012), prosecutors treat

veterans who are defendants in criminal trials (Wilson, Brodsky, Neal, & Cramer,

2011), and journalists treat veterans in writing news articles (Kleykamp & Hipes,

2015). This article contributes to this body of literature by analyzing support for

veterans in two additional environments: (1) product markets in which these veter-

ans’ lottery tickets are sold and (2) a statewide referendum to create a lottery ticket

with proceeds benefiting veteran s’ services. Using county-level d ata from three

states, the primary focus of this article is to identify characteristics of county popu-

lations that increase the intensity of support for veterans.

The analysis on public support for veterans in this article can be divided into two

parts. The first part of this study estimated the relationships between county-level

Yaskewich 409