LETTER: Nevada needs a lottery to boost education funding

The past few months have been the most exciting time for this city that I have witnessed in more than 50 years, outside of the 1980 Holmes-Ali fight. Las Vegas recently hosted the Formula One race and the Super Bowl. These events were inconvenient for locals with road closures and detours, but were good for the community. Casinos broke revenue records.

For many years Las Vegas was shunned, but now it is considered the food, entertainment and sports capital of the world. Yet our schools are ranked near the bottom of Metro areas surveyed.

Economic diversification has been needed for years, but why would a company relocate here, given our educational ranking? To lure industries, we need to improve education locally and create vocational schools, which takes funding.

Nevada needs a new revenue stream for education, mental health and homelessness. It is time for gaming to embrace lottery legislation. A lottery could be created by the gaming industry and taxed by the state, or created and managed by the state. A third approach is to increase the gaming tax by a quarter point, which would still be a fraction of what’s paid elsewhere. Las Vegas can be the No. 1 state in education if funded by a lottery.