I'll try not to moralize, or at least not to be tedious, in discussing the plan of provincial governments to expand Internet gambling operations. British Columbia raised the weekly betting limits for its online casino games to $9,999. Quebec figures that in a couple of years, revenue from online gambling will add some $50 million to the treasury. The Atlantic provinces are getting into the game bigtime.

Perhaps, in a self-interested way, this is something that non-gamblers like me should celebrate. I ought to encourage my own province of Ontario also to expand its state-run gambling enterprise, so that all the good things that the government does, from which I derive personal benefit, will be even more heavily subsidized by others.

Let the sucker who spends his days in front of a video lottery terminal pay for my children's educations. Let the loser who takes forever at the gas station cashier sorting through his lottery tickets, thus making me late for work when all I want to do is pay for a fill-up -- let him pay for my health care.

A 2008 survey showed that about seven per cent of Ontario adults believe that "gambling is an easy way to make money." Nine per cent believe that "the more you gamble, the more likely you are to win a lot of money." You don't have to be a student of probabilities to know how wrong they are.

While a lot of people gamble now and then, the habitual gamblers -- the ones who provide much of the revenue that governments reap -- constitute a small percentage of the population, perhaps the nine per cent who believe gambling is a way to make money. So part of me wants to say: Nine per cent of Ontarians are delusional, and we shouldn't feel bad about taking their money and using it to buy MRI machines for the rest of us.

Let's be honest. This nine per cent who provide so much revenue and who believe gambling is a way to get rich are an unsympathetic lot. I was taught that the secret to financial security was education and hard work. If some people aren't prepared to do that and instead try to use the casino as a short cut, then they deserve to lose their money.

Or maybe the problem isn't that they're lazy. If they really believe they can make money gambling, they might be plain stupid.

Lots of data suggest that a disproportionate amount of gambling revenue comes from the uneducated class. The province might as well take their money because these people aren't competent to spend it wisely anyway.

That's the cynical view. As I said, I'm not immune to it, especially when I'm stuck behind a guy buying $50 worth of scratch 'n' win cards who would be better off spending the money on winter boots for his toddler.

The ethical view, however, is that exploiting the poor is wrong -- which is what government gambling does. Economists talk about gambling as a regressive tax -- a tax on those who can least afford it.

One Canadian study found that the highest rates of compulsive gambling show up in aboriginal communities. There are U.S. data going back 20 years showing that state lotteries raise much of their money from blacks and other disadvantaged minorities.

Last year in Britain, a new study was released showing that manual labourers and the unemployed are significantly more likely to play the national lottery, a finding that has caused some controversy because the lottery is helping to pay for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

It's tempting to call for governments to exit the gambling business altogether -- tempting, but impractical. In Canada, the provinces are too dependent on the revenue. There's also the unseemly paternalism of trying to protect people -- especially poor people -- from themselves. Gambling isn't the only unhealthy behaviour that correlates with low income and education. In a free society people are allowed to make dumb choices. No one is forcing families that are on social assistance to buy $65 cartons of cigarettes and stacks of lotto tickets.

But governments should be aware that gambling revenue is morally compromised. In a 2006 paper, the Ottawa-based Vanier Institute of the Family argued persuasively that governments have played an important role not just in sanitizing and legimitizing gambling, but in creating the demand for it.

Remember the hype surrounding Lotto Super 7? The marketing targeted those foolish, desperate people who believe everyone is entitled to be rich, that you don't have to work for it, and that anyone can be a winner.