Is the state lottery a tax?

That’s a question the N.C. Supreme Court will decide. The answer could determine whether the legislative process that created the state-run lottery was constitutional. 

The John Locke Foundation’s Agenda 2008 describes the lottery’s origins this way:

The North Carolina Education Lottery was born of corruption, from its
inception as a bill, to its lobbying, to its rushed enactment in the
N.C. House and Senate in the face of the state’s constitutional
requirement that revenue bills face multiple votes on successive days,
to its false promise to and exploitation of the state’s poorest
citizens.

For more on the JLF’s stance on the lottery, click here.