Great Day Colorado
Great Day Colorado is a locally focused podcast and publishing company serving Colorado communities since 2017. Headquartered in Littleton, we produce engaging, thoughtful audio programs and publish stories that celebrate the people, places, and issues that make our state unique.
Great Day Colorado
Why Lottery Ads Flood Poor Neighborhoods?
A short walk down Colfax turned into a crash course on how hope gets marketed where margins are thinnest. We dig into why lottery billboards blanket low income and predominantly Black neighborhoods and rarely appear in wealthier suburbs, and we connect the dots between retailer commissions, billboard economics, and the retail landscapes shaped by redlining and zoning. What looks like neutral market logic—put ads where sales are strong—sits on top of a map drawn by discriminatory policy, creating a cycle where data, dollars, and dreams converge.
We unpack how targeted messaging leverages financial stress, promising escape and instant transformation rather than responsible play. Studies show media aimed at Black and Latino audiences carries heavier lottery ad loads, often alongside payday lending and fast food spots, normalizing high-risk consumption where budgets are tight. The result: lower income players spend a larger share of income on long-shot odds, turning state lotteries into a regressive tax that extracts wealth from the people least able to lose it.
Rather than pointing fingers at individuals, we call out systems that produce racially disparate outcomes without explicit intent. Then we move to solutions: restrict outdoor ads in vulnerable neighborhoods, mandate bold odds disclosures, cap retailer commissions to reduce aggressive upselling, direct lottery revenues transparently into debt relief, savings programs, and small business grants, and require public reporting of ad spend by zip code. If we change the incentives and shine light on the flows of money and messaging, we can shift from selling hope to building opportunity.
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Hey everyone. For our TikTok and Instagram fans, please visit GreatDayRadio.com or GreatdayColorado.com to listen and download the full episode. Welcome to Great Day Radio. I'm DJ Mikey D, and for this podcast, we're diving deep into a pattern you've probably noticed, but maybe haven't fully understood the overwhelming concentration of lottery billboards in low income and predominantly black neighborhoods across the United States. So how did this topic come up? I live downtown Denver, Colorado. Recently I decided to take a walk to find a new place to eat. As I was walking east on Colfax Avenue, I really started taking notice of not only the amount of liquor stores, but the amount of advertisings to play the lottery. Now if you've driven through different parts of any major American city, you've seen it. In wealthier, whiter neighborhoods, maybe a billboard for a luxury car or a university, but in poorer communities of color, you're bombarded with messages about hitting the jackpot, changing your life with a scratch off ticket. This isn't random, this is by design. Let's start with the why. Why are these ads so heavily concentrated in these specific areas? It comes down to a cold hard economic logic. State lotteries pay commissions to the corner stores and gas stations that sell tickets. In wealthier areas a store might not rely on that income, but in a neighborhood that's been economically disinvested in for decades, that lottery revenue can be a financial lifeline for a small business owner. So you get this feedback loop. More advertising leads to more sales. More sales mean the retailer makes more commission, which makes them more dependent on that income. So they might be more willing to host a bright, flashy billboard right outside their door. The state lottery agency sees the sales data, sees that these zip codes have higher per capita spending and says this is where we get the best return on our advertising dollar. It's a cycle, and billboards themselves are a key part of this. They're a cheap, efficient way to reach people in areas with high foot traffic and local car traffic, exactly the kind of urban environments you find in lower income neighborhoods. You don't see many billboards in suburban cul-de-sacks because people aren't walking past them. The very landscape of these communities makes them ideal targets for this kind of outdoor marketing. But this economic story is only half the picture. To really understand what's happening, you have to layer it on top of history. We're talking about historic redlining, discriminatory lending practices, and systematic urban disinvestment that created racially segregated neighborhoods with concentrated poverty in the first place. These policies didn't just determine where people could live, they determined the commercial landscape. They created the dense networks of small, walkable stores that are perfect for selling lottery tickets and hosting billboards. Meanwhile, wealthier whiter suburbs were zoned differently, more big box stores, less foot traffic, fewer places even eligible to sell lottery tickets. The playing field was never level. So the market incentives we talked about, they're operating on a map that was drawn by racism. The data that advertisers follow, showing higher lottery spending in black and brown neighborhoods, isn't happening in a vacuum. It's data that's been shaped by decades of policy decisions that limited wealth building and economic opportunity for these very communities. And let's talk about the advertising itself. The messaging is very specific. It's not about responsible gaming or play for fun. It's about hope, it's about escape, it's about a sudden, miraculous financial transformation. When you're facing economic precarity, when you're living paycheck to paycheck, that message hits different. It's designed to resonate with the very real financial stress that people are experiencing. And let's talk about the advertising itself. The messaging is very specific. It's not about responsible gaming or play for fun. It's about hope, it's about escape. It's about a sudden, miraculous financial transformation. When you're facing economic precarity, when you're living paycheck to paycheck, that message hits different. It's designed to resonate with the very real financial stress that people are experiencing. This isn't just speculation. Studies of media buying show that marketing channels specifically oriented toward black and Latino communities carry a heavier load of lottery ads. It's de facto targeted marketing. And it often comes as part of a package deal. The same neighborhoods are saturated with ads for lotteries, payday lenders, and fast food. It normalizes a certain kind of high risk consumption in marginalized areas. The consequences are severe and well documented. Multiple studies confirm that lower income individuals spend a larger percentage of their income on the lottery than wealthier people. Some surveys show black and Hispanic players also spend a disproportionate share. This isn't a harmless pastime, it functions as a regressive tax. Money that could be going toward groceries, rent, or savings is being funneled into a system with astronomically bad odds. This brings us to a crucial point systemic racism. When we look at this entire picture, the billboard placement, the marketing, the spending patterns, we see a racially disparate outcome. And here's the key thing about systemic racism, it doesn't require a villain in a room making racist decisions. An ad executive can say we're just putting ads where the sales are. A state legislator can say the lottery funds education, they can have zero racist intent, but when their neutral sounding market based decisions interact with a history of profound racial inequality, the outcome is racist. The system itself is producing the inequity. That's why critics are increasingly calling state lotteries a form of exploitation. They're a state sanction, state advertise mechanism that extracts wealth from the most financially vulnerable communities. So what can be done? There are policy alternatives. States could restrict targeted outdoor advertising in vulnerable neighborhoods, the same way some places restrict ads for alcohol or tobacco. They could institute stricter advertising standards, forcing ads to prominently display the true odds of winning. They could cap the commissions retailers earn, reducing the incentive to push tickets aggressively. Furthermore, lottery revenues could be transparently directed to social programs that actually benefit the communities most harmed by the lottery, things like financial literacy programs, debt relief, or small business grants. And states could require disclosure of exactly where advertising dollars are spent so we can monitor and publicize the demographic impact. In summary, those lottery billboards cluster where they do because market incentives, a segregated retail landscape, and a history of discriminatory policy all align to make poor and black neighborhoods high return targets. The result is a predatory cycle that contributes to regressive spending and financial harm. Acknowledging this isn't about assigning blame to individuals, it's about recognizing a flawed system and making the political choice to fix it. Thanks for listening to Great Day Radio's The Policy Mike. I'm DJ Mikey D. Stay Informed. Remember, knowledge is power. If you are listening to our short clip on Instagram or TikTok, please visit GreatDayRadio.com or GreatDayColorado.com to listen to the full podcast episode. Now on to the show.
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