The Tax Incidence of the Colorado State Lottery Instant Game

Abstract

This article assesses the county-by-county incidence of the Colorado state lottery tax for instant games during 1989. Tax regressivity is found. The share of income spent on instant game tickets is negatively related to per capita income. Regressivity is confirmed by Suits's index of tax concentration. An even stronger case of regres sivity suggests that instant game tickets are an inferiorgood. Per capita instant game sales are negatively and significantly related to income in regressions, including the percentage of county population that is Hispanic, the percentage of Blacks, population density, the number of instant game outlets per capita, and variables related to the age distribution and educational attainment of county population.