WHY THIS NEW LOTTERY STUDY?

At the behest of Congress, the U.S. Army is looking into the possibility of permitting lotteries at American military bases overseas.

What an exercise in folly!Part of that folly is outlined by John Hughes in his syndicated column on this page. As Hughes notes, the move could help get more Americans hooked on gambling at a time when this form of addiction already is growing. What's more, legalized gambling tends to foster illegal gambling.

But an even stronger case can be made against this study, let alone the possible implementation of the lottery proposal.

If the plan is approved, it would be the first federally supported lottery. The precedent would be bound to increase pressure to extend lotteries from overseas military bases to military bases within the United States - and then possibly to other federal facilities and areas.

Yet, as previous studies have long shown, lotteries are costly to run, raise only 2 to 3 percent of the budgets in the states that have adopted them, and encourage the most betting from those people least able to afford to lose their money - namely, the poor.

Consider, too, the relationship between legalized gambling and crime. One study shows that as states' approval of lotteries and other forms of gambling grew between 1960 and 1980, there was a 224 percent increase in arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol, a 70 percent increase in arrests for forgery and counterfeiting and a 250 percent increase in arrests for fraud.

Why? Because gambling encourages people to act at the bidding of selfish and senseless inclinations regardless of the cost, even to others.

Likewise, the same study showed that for the states reporting lottery revenue in 1980, state and local welfare costs averaged $234 per person compared to only $100 per person in the states with no legalized gambling.

The message should be clear: There already have been plenty of lottery studies. If there's anything that is not needed, it is another such study. Likewise, if there's anything that's needed even less than this latest study, it is a lottery at any American military base anywhere.