We were appalled, though not surprised, to learn of the Ohio Lottery Commission’s unanimous approval last week of a second daily drawing for its Pick 3 and Pick 4 games. The state is a lottery profits junkie, and as every junkie knows, it takes more and more of the drug of choice to get high the longer you’re addicted.

The state has had a bad case of the shakes of late because the revenue from its lottery games has been sliding for three straight years. It hopes to reverse that trend by creating a second Pick 3 and Pick 4 drawing around midday. The new games could start as early as next month.

But why stop there? Why not hold hourly drawings so that players have even more chances to win? Isn’t winning what it’s all about? How does the commercial go - “Do you feel lucky today?” How about, “Could this be your lucky hour?”. 

We certainly feel lucky - lucky that we’ve got good-paying jobs that make us less susceptible to buying into the lottery’s siren song of quick riches than people in lower-income brackets who are as hooked on the lottery as the state.

And make no mistake, the state is hooked. The lottery, pushed at its inception as a way to create a windfall that would pay for the extras at primary and secondary schools across Ohio, instead has become a source of substitute revenue for general fund money in’ covering the basics of public education.

So, we witness a state lottery commission that votes to expand two of its daily games less than one month after a federal commission studying gambling’s impact issues a report recommending that states curb their gaming.   In light of the social and economic problems and gambling addictions that legalized gambling produce. We guess economics outweighs the state’s social responsibility to its citizens. It shouldn’t be that way.

The state needs to wean itself from its lottery addiction, rather than seek new ways of satisfying its cravings. We still are on record as advocating the dissolution of the lottery. Short of that miracle, we’d be encouraged to see the state steadily lessen its dependence on lottery proceeds. By seeking “to reinvigorate the game,” as put last week by the lottery’s deputy director of finance, Gale Fisk, the state only perpetuates the practice of siphoning citizens’ dollars with what amounts to a regressive tax disguised as a road to wealth. This scam should be curtailed, not enlarged.