serious answer wrote:
The spending being optional has nothing to do with it, morons. The government taxes lottery tickets and supports athletics with part of it just like they tax gas and cigarettes and support other public services with that money.
no, no, no. Lottery tickets are taxed just like cigarettes and petrol, as you say but this is NOT the money we're talking about here. The REST of the money spent (i.e. not the taxed part) when buying petrol and cigarettes goes primarily to large multi-national corporations for huge profit. With a lottery ticket, the operating company only takes a small amount of the profits and the rest goes to the prize fund and 'good causes' (of which athletics makes up a small proportion). These 'good causes' are chosen by Parliament but it's not really 'their' money.
Anyone complaining of their taxes funding athletes is absolutely in the wrong