Letter: Lottery addiction

Sir: Whilst your leading article (3 June) remonstrating against the worst effects of the National Lottery is timely, I fear your prescription of redress is mere wishful thinking.

For too many the Lottery has become the only focus of hope-against-hope for a better life. Gambling is a form of abuse: money abuse. To have made a crippling and demoralising mass addiction the price for subsidising someone else's idea of a good cause was always a cynical manoeuvre. The only remedy now lies not in some "educational" programme but in separating licensed gaming from the support of charities.

MALCOLM ROSS

Dartington, Devon