Lotteries

Though California has laws that ban betting, it does not follow that children are taught in school that gambling is wrong, as one reader contends (Letters, Dec. 5). Since when has that been part of the curriculum? I think it would depend on the teacher’s attitude when the subject comes up.

Why is a state-sanctioned lottery any more of a “paradox” than is a jail system or a capital punishment system, neither of which are legal outside state sanction?

The lottery is no more immoral than is the stock market--both are a gamble. It is ludicrous that some affluents who play the market seem to resent the poor who play the lottery.

Lotteries are well-grounded in American history. New Hampshire raised the money by lottery that was used to pay the soldiers it sent to George Washington’s revolutionary ragtag army.

BETTY E. MITSON

Fullerton