Confused Kentucky Rakes in Millions on Lottery Win!

It looks like there were three lucky winners in the Power ball Lottery drawing Saturday night. A single ticket for the grand prize of $128.6 million was sold in Georgetown, Kentucky. The person who bought the winning ticket is obviously one lucky winner.

Winner number two is the Federal Government. If the winner collects the winnings all in one lump sum, it would be around $60 million. Federal taxes would take away around $15 million, or roughtly25 percent.

Lucky winner number three is the State of Kentucky. Kentucky imposes a 6 percent tax on lottery winnings. That means that the State of Kentucky stands to take in some $3.5 million for its share of the $60 million lump sum.

You would think that with all the benefits Kentucky enjoys from gambling, that it would seek to help the gambling battles. Yet they seem to try and deny gambling to the states residents at every turn.

Kentucky remains at the center of controversy over online gambling. Churchill Downs operates TwinSpires and is in preparations to buy YouBet. And yet while the U.S. Department of Justice continues to scream out that all internet gambling is illegal, they have never raised a single complaint about Kentucky’s open internet gambling.

It is a mystery how the State of Kentucky can shout about all the social ills of gambling, yet never flinch when it comes to raking in all the millions in tax revenue windfalls from the same gambling. One word of advice: don’t be standing in the door of the bank when they arrive to deposit that $3.5 million check. You could get trampled in the stampede.