Whenever the Lotto jackpot reaches astronomical proportions, the evening news shows the long lines of people waiting to buy tickets, and interviews some of them on camera. They then invariably show a scene that can be pathetic or even heartrending to watch: Some poor person is proud that he was able scrape together several hundred dollars to take advantage of this rare opportunity.
The Lotto justifies itself by saying it is selling fantasy, "a dream for a dollar", and that while buying a ticket may not be rational, it can be cheap as far as entertainment goes. It is clear though that this person is not merely buying a fantasy, but is rather trying to invest in a better future. Unfortunately, it is hard to think of a worse investment. To prevent the state from harming those it ostensibly is trying to help, there should be a limit on how many Lotto tickets is sold at once to a customer. While personally I think the limit should be one (which is all that is needed for a fantasy), any small number would do.
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To do that, to buy lotto tickets (of the ball-number type anyway), you would need a lotto license, which you must submit to the lotto vendor to purchase tickets. The lotto terminal checks a database to be sure you haven't exceeded your limit.
There would need to be some means to ensure one license per person.
The lottery has often been called a tax on stupid people. This never seemed more true than when I heard the story of a man and his relative getting tens of thousands of dollars on loan to buy lottery tickets. The lottery exists to create revenue for the state, so limiting the number of tickets a person can buy would reduce the amount of money brought in. However, for the convenience of people standing in line waiting for their tickets, I wouldn't mind seeing a limit on how many a person can buy at one time, especially when they're not using a Quick-pick system (your nomenclature may vary.)
I don't mind a tax on stupid people via the lottery - it IS voluntary, after all.
This may not be popular with people that play the lotto but to cut down on the poor person scraping together his or her hard earned cash for that dream of a huge payoff they should put a cap on how large the jackpot can get. For example lets put the cap at $60 mil. Once the jackpot exceeds $60 mil. the remander would go into the education fund or what ever else the lotto is helping pay for at the moment. It could also be used to lessen the taxes the winner would have to pay on their winnings.