After witnessing first hand what damage a state lottery can do I find myself quite complacent about the U.S.'s backwards gambling market.

Don't get me wrong I like to gamble (poker with friends - yeah I'm old school like that) it just seems my fellow countrymen don't know how to reign it all in.

I agree. Of course, what's happened here in Texas is that players for the Texas lottery have gone down, while players for Mega Millions (for which Tejas gets a smaller cut) have gone up. So the Lottery Commission is pushing the Texas Lottery harder.

Every ad ends with "play responsibly" and the back of every ticket and scratch&sniff has the phone number of GA.