I need to make a presentation on the legality of gambling, and wanted to show how the government charges WAY more rake than a casino or raketrack does in it's lotteries..

However, I need the data from somewhere, but cant find online.

Online site I found wich states a "rake" for the lottery is this one:
http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/lotteries.html

and I think the figure is maybe exagerated (they only return 14% of prize pool, on average, to the winners?? can this be true?)

anyway, i'd be really thankfull if anyone can point me out a better site with these stats!

http://www.palottery.state.pa.us/content.aspx?id=60

I know that this isn't a whole lot of information, but this page is a breakdown (from the PA state lotto) of how the money is used. Short story, 59% goes to prize pool. I'm sure there's more info on the site In my link.

On average, in the US, the state is the worst gambling partner you can find. Most states consider gaming to fall under the "fund raising" laws (because that's how they're justified), and require an ~50% hold (percentage of gross revenue held by the sponsoring entity). Most of these laws were written to prevent "Fagin" operations -- but still exist and handcuff legitimate operations. There is little chance of government panels ever understanding what in the hell is going on. Why do governments starve with an ~ 50% advantage situated in a monopoly, while private clubs flourish with a 2-3% advantage in a competitive market?

The answers are scattered far and wide within the literature of economics, but are widely disregarded.

If this is really a mystery to you, you might do better by researching how government run health care will save us money. I think you'll find that the disconnect from reality is the same -- but, being topical, there will be more information.

Foreshadowing?

Mostly obfuscation, but if you can separate the information from the noise there's some foreshadowing.

Ok but I still cant believe nobody has made a ranking/website with tables showing lottery vigs, isnt that very usefull information for both the pro-gambling lobbyist and lottery players? also there may be a business oportunity by arbitraging and offering to buy a lottery ticket from one state in another (i dunno if thats legal)..

im not sure what you are talking about with arbitraging and offering to buy lottos from different states...if you are referring to multi-state lotteries, such as the PowerBall or MegaMillions, the 'vig,' whatever it may be, is the same. A winning ticket in one state for the PowerBall drawing does not pay any more or less than an identical winning ticket from another state.

and if you are talking about state run lotteries, see the above link from the state of PA. also check out similar sites for other states. the pennsylvania one (pretty clearly) shows that 41% of all wagers are retained.

im an auxillary member of the VFW and occassionally a neighboring post hosts a $50 buyin poker tournament and some other clubs of this type do the same thing where they only payback 50% of the prizepool. are they required by law to pay back this little? coincidentally every fundraising event of this type ive attented, the money being raised was to "fix the roof".

I'll have to check the link later, but I suspect this may refer to the NET that is returned (after state vig, fed taxes, etc) and may be also (falsely) using the ticket sales vs. the cash prize value.

$100M tix sold = $59M annuity prize (actually, with the other prizes that have to be funded, it would be less) = ~50% cash prize, or less than $30M.

Now, we take out fed withholding of 25%, and you probably end up in the 35% tax bracket... so you're down to less than $18M net. That gets us close to their "return" on the original money in....

?

I suspect this is closer to the truth

In most states 50% is the maximum payout allowed -- or, as they see it, the sponsoring group must earn at least 50% of the gross. These laws pretty much prohibit anyone from running casino type games.

I'm interested in this.

It seems pretty obvious to me that most of the state lotteries are corrupt and surely someone was bribed so the company can charge 30% fee for "processing while the state keeps ~20% and ~50% actually ends up in the prizepool.

It wasn't easy, but, after 8 seconds on google, here's what I found:

http://www.ncsl.org/?TabId=12747

It appears to include all "single state" (i.e. not powerball, etc) lotteries.

Those numbers are very skewed. For example, they show that Arizona has an 8.6% admin cost -- when their retail commission rate is almost 7%! What they've done is removed all game related expenses from gross sales, and created "net sales". These costs include the cost of tickets, distribution, computer equipment, and retailer commission. Don't trust these numbers -- they're all much closer to 50% payout if you use gross figures. Compare the AZ numbers here to the numbers in the above referenced link.

Apparently these numbers were meant to be misleading. Look at Massachusets with a 2% admin cost and 77% payout! Obviously, if you net the sales, the most inefficient operations are going to have the highest payout.