In August, the North Dakota Lottery had a grand announcement. North Dakota Powerball players had won more than $60,000 in a previous drawing, a record for the state. The rest of the story, not publicized until now, is that North Dakota Powerball players also lost a record amount, more than $345,000, in the same drawing. (If you like to think in percentages, about 15 percent was won and about 85 percent was lost.)

Over the year from October 2006 to the end of September 2007 (12 months), a bit more than $12.3 million was spent on Powerball and Powerplay Lottery gambling in North Dakota. Of this, about $2.5 million was won, and about $9.7 million was lost. (That was about 79 percent lost and about 21 percent won by North Dakotans.)

The costs of running the Powerball Lottery in our state were about the same as the winnings, approximately $2.5 million for the same period.

The state did pick up about $3.7 million for itself, a small part of which was dedicated to helping people who suffer from problem gambling, an acknowledgment that the actions of the state are responsible for part of the problem that some citizens experience.

If people believe that gambling is an OK endeavor, they will probably be happy with the positive spin the state puts on this predatory enterprise, since it is a small contributor to the state's income.

But if they believe that gambling is a poor choice of entertainment and an extremely poor example of wise spending, this is an example of poor fiscal sense, a lack of fiscal responsibility and an enterprise that the state could permit but certainly should not promote.

By the way, if people are greed-driven, need more mindless entertainment and have even a simplistic sense of probability, they shouldn't play Powerball. They should throw away their money on one of the other lotteries available in the state. The odds are much better.