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On average, Ohioans spend $9.52 a week on lottery tickets.
CELINA - Ohioans are the eighth biggest lottery spenders in the nation, plopping down $9.52 weekly or an average of $495 in 2023, a recent study by a lottery news publication shows.
Ohio had total lottery sales of $5.8 billion in 2023, according to Lottery Geeks, which analyzed data from the most recent lottery sales report from the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries and factored in each state's population for its study.
"However, Ohio residents don't get the best deal as the state ranks thirteenth for prizes, with each resident receiving just $125 a year on average," a news release states.
Indiana came in at No. 27 on the state lottery spending list in 2023, with Hoosiers spending $4.91 a week or on average $256 a year.
Rhode Island claimed the top spot with residents spending $18.06 a week or on average $939 a year on lottery tickets.
The Ohio Lottery reports that in 2023, players won $2.8 billion in prizes, while over 9,800 retailers raked in more than $282 million in commissions. It also asserts that Ohio students are winners, with $1.4 billion going to the Ohio Lottery Profits Education Fund.
"One hundred percent of Ohio Lottery profits help support K-12, vocational, and special education programs in Ohio," the Ohio Lottery website states. "Since 1974, the Ohio Lottery has provided more than $31 billion to Ohio's K-12 education programs."
Ohio Department of Education reports that Ohio Lottery contributed $1.34 billion toward the $11.6 billion in total spending on primary and secondary education funding in fiscal year 2023.
There are other beneficiaries of lottery winnings, too.
State law grants child support agencies the right to intercept jackpot and prize winnings from noncustodial parents who owe past due support, according to an Ohio Department of Job and Family Services news release.
ODJFS, in partnership with the Ohio Lottery Commission, the Ohio Casino Control Commission and Ohio's casinos and racinos, established an automated interface for interceptions.
"The state of Ohio attaches lottery winnings for child support arrears," said Mercer County Job and Family Services Director Angela Nickel. "That's been quite useful for many families and child support over the years."
On average, about $4,000 in lottery winnings is intercepted and redirected as child support in Mercer County, Nickel said.
"We probably hit three or four (payments) a year," she said.
From 2014 to April 2019, ODJFS intercepted over $10 million in unpaid child support from jackpot winners at Ohio's casinos and racinos and Ohio Lottery prize winners, per the release.
For all its success stories, the lottery, which falls under the category of gambling, can be abused and lead to addiction.
On average, Ohioans spend $9.52 a week on lottery tickets.
"If you think about it … it's one of the easiest forms (of gambling). You walk into a gas station, it's everywhere," said Matt Ronan, a substance abuse coordinator for Foundations Behavioral Health Services in Celina. "It always seems like somebody's in front of me or somebody's standing off to the side, buying a lottery ticket or scratching it off. They display the winners in the gas stations, I've noticed that."
Moderation, Ronan said, is key in maintaining a healthy relationship with the lottery.
"Like anything else, you set a limit, and then (some) people find that they obviously don't stay within that limit," he said. "There are people who could spend $20 a week and that's what they spend every week on gambling or lottery and do fine with that."
Some people, though, may struggle with the lottery like others do with alcohol and drugs.
Like drugs, gambling can affect the brain's reward circuit by flooding it with the chemical messenger dopamine, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Surges of dopamine in the reward circuit cause the reinforcement of pleasurable but unhealthy activities, leading people to repeat the behavior again and again.
"It's kind of like that person who says, 'One is too many and a thousand's not enough,'" Ronan said.
For some, the anticipation of buying and scratching off a lottery ticket is just as powerful as the actual act.
"Sometimes when people go to play the lottery, they say, 'I get this buzz. It's the anticipation that I may have a winner. It may be this time,'" Ronan said.
It's estimated that 2.5 million Americans meet the criteria for a severe gambling problem, according to The National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG). Another 5-8 million or 2-3% would be considered to have mild or moderate gambling problems.
"When it becomes a problem is the person cannot stay within their limits," Ronan said. "So they start spending more time doing it and spending more time on it, and when they win, usually they take their winnings and turn right around and put it back in, rather than saving their winnings."
A lottery addiction can have devastating consequences on personal finances, marriages, jobs and careers, Ronan said.
"They will lose everything and then lose more," he said.
NCPG estimates that the annual national social cost of problem gambling is $14 billion.
"These costs include gambling-related criminal justice and healthcare spending as well as job loss, bankruptcy, and other consequence," the organization's website states.
When problem gamblers suffer unsustainable losses or sink into insurmountable debt, they may become hopeless and feel there's no way out of their predicament.
"Problem gamblers have the highest rate of any addiction disorder … with 1 in 5 problem gamblers attempting suicide," Ronan said.
