DATE: Saturday, November 29, 1997           TAG: 9711270018

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY

                                            LENGTH:   65 lines

SCRATCH IT JESUS WOULD NOT BE AMUSED BY THE LATEST LOTTERY GAME

Getting ready to light your first Advent candle? About to dust off the Nativity scene? Tuning up for a few Christmas carols? How droll. The Virginia State Lottery has a far merrier way to brighten your Christmas season - a holiday scratch-off lottery ticket.

Jesus would be touched.

For a mere $2 you can win up to $25,000 instantly on a ``Holiday Cheer'' ticket in the shape of a Christmas stocking. Match three little Christmas candles and you can win $50. It certainly takes some of the shine off gold, frankincense and myrrh, doesn't it?

Like a number of Virginians, I am growing impatient with the Virginia Lottery. The false promises that its supporters promulgated a few years ago to get the measure passed - that the games would be innocuous fun and that education would benefit - ring hollow today. Virginia state government is hopelessly hooked on lottery revenues, yet none of the money is earmarked for education nor is it safely restricted to non-recurring capital expenses. And in order to keep Virginians wasting their hard-earned money on lottery tickets, the lottery honchos constantly cook up new games.

The Christmas scratch-off was a hit last year, so they brought it back again.

It's just the latest in a series of steps toward the Nevada-ization of Virginia. Heck, my supermarket checkout already looks like a mini casino with flashing lights on the lottery ticket machines; and I think I see the perfect space there for a slot machine as soon as the gaming industry convinces the General Assembly to legalize that. It's just a matter of time.

I suppose it's pointless to remind state officials that nearly every study of gambling ever conducted showed ticket sales highest among those least able to afford it. Or that the rate of ticket purchases is inversely proportionate to educational levels. In other words, the poorest and least educated among us are the most inclined to spend their meager resources on lottery tickets in their desperate desire to get rich quick.

But to sucker these people at Christmas time, with red and green cards emblazoned with candy canes and grinning teddy bears, seems especially cynical.

As a Christian I am offended that the lottery folks are cashing in on what some of us still stubbornly cling to as a religious holiday.

What next? Little scratch-off Virgin Marys?

And why stop with Christmas? Surely the lottery commission has figured out that a quick buck could be made off Easter, too. Maybe some sort of a resurrection rummy would be in order - scratch off three crosses in a row and win $100.

And in the interest of horrifying people of all religious persuasions, I would urge the lottery folks to begin planning a big Passover poker game for the spring - a straight flush of scratch-off sacrificial lambs could earn you a lot of loot. And while they're at it, they ought to find some way to make a few dollars off Ramadan this winter.

I know, the Virginia Lottery is not alone in its efforts to transform this blessed religious holiday into a tawdry excuse to make money, but I'd like to remind Richmond that the only time Jesus really blew his top in public was over the money changers at the temple.

Marketing Christmas to sell scratch-off lottery tickets is proof that the lottery commission will stop at nothing to sell tickets. Which leaves us with something to look forward to in 1998: What will they think of next? MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu