The Lottery: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Why HN readers recommended it

Go-to reference in lottery threads for the point that earmarked lottery revenue does not really add to school funding.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

LastWeekTonight

Topic

state lotteries

Format

commentary

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

6

HN mentions in dataset

13

Recommendation years in dataset

2014–2023

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• The practices of the Oregon lottery seem wrong to me. Government should be in the business of helping people and providing uncorrupted resources and facts, not marketing dreams and hope to people while taking their money hand over fist. John Oliver just did a good …

• I was actually thinking outside of slots. A lot of gambling practices are still illegal like sports betting in most of America. Such illegal gambling often leads to some sort of organized crime around providing loans and the actual gambling service itself. But I was …

• This is good news and bad news. The funding for schools will be a boon to education in the state, and that's certainly not bad. However, I expect will almost certainly lead to decreased education funding from other revenue sources, and ultimately place education footing …