A lottery for the rich!!!

Sir, Peter Orzag the former director at the US office of Management and Budget recently wrote about the role of lotteries in raising savings… and I presume implicitly, the fiscal revenues, “Taking a chance can be a better way to save”, February 17.

One of the criticisms he referred to was that these lotteries were usually a regressive form of tax since it mostly attracted the poor who had the most to gain from it. Today when reading Kara Scanell, Justin Baer and Haig Simonian reporting "US arrests Swiss banker in tax probe” they make reference to an amnesty programme for US individuals who would be granted leniency in exchange for their co-operation… and I could not refrain from thinking about a lottery that could interest the richer segments of the lottery market.