Gas prices are up, tourism is slow and expensive coffee drinks are out.

Lottery tickets are in.

People might be pinching pennies to cope with the slumping economy, but they’re not cutting back on buying lottery tickets, according to Washington’s Lottery data.

In fact, ticket sales are up slightly from last year.

“I keep hoping to win, that’s what keeps me going,” said Mike Peltier, 61, of Marysville, who typically buys about $10 worth of lottery tickets each week. “I just hope I win.”

On scratch tickets and draw games such as Keno and Mega Millions, Washingtonians spent $481.4 million in 2004, $458.1 million in 2005, $477.9 million in 2006 and $492.6 million in 2007, according to annual report statistics at www.walottery.com/docs/pdfs/CAFR07_Statistics.pdf. Sales in 2007 were bolstered by several large jackpots, said Jacque Coe, spokeswoman for Washington’s Lottery.

Through mid-June, lottery game sales for this year are ahead of 2007 sales by roughly $1.2 million, Coe said. Snohomish County residents have spent about $22.9 million on lottery games so far this year.

A 2004 Herald analysis found that in six of the state’s 39 counties, the amount of money being spent on the lottery each year worked out to more than $100 for every man, woman and child living in those counties. At the time, the statewide average spent on tickets was about $80 a person.

“Overall, our games are doing well,” Coe said. “We haven’t seen any impact from the economy.”

It’s a phenomenon dating back to 18th-century America, said Robert Wright, an economics professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University. In the wake of the Panic of 1819, a massive economic crisis in the United States, people couldn’t walk down a street in Philadelphia without being accosted by lottery brokers, he said.

“It was as bad as Starbucks,” Wright said.

People substitute cheaper pleasures for their expensive luxuries during rough financial times, he said.

And with the lottery, there’s that added chance of striking it rich.

“People are buying them not only for the pleasure, but also for the off chance it might get them out of their financial troubles,” Wright said.

“There is some chance,” he said. “Some people do win those things.”

Religiously buying lottery tickets paid off for Owen Osborn of Smokey Point. In February, the convenience store clerk won a $2.3 million jackpot from a lottery ticket he bought at 7-11 on Broadway in Everett. He took home $862,500 after taxes.

Most people who play the lottery aren’t as lucky as Osborn, said Peter Harvey, a financial adviser at Edward Jones in Everett.

A safer bet is to invest in the stock market, he said.

“You can gamble, or you can invest,” Harvey said. “Investing is looking at the fundamentals, sticking with quality, reducing the risk, doing your research, doing your homework. That’s investing.”

Lately, investors have been pulling their money out of the U.S. stock market and investing in overseas commodities such as gold and oil, Harvey said.

If history is any indication, that makes the nation’s stock market a safe, long-term bet, he said. People can buy more shares for less money when the market is down.

“When the market recovers, historically it’s been dramatic, sudden and unexpected,” Harvey said. “It seems like they’re going overseas, but the U.S. stock market is a good place to be in.”

For some people, playing the lottery isn’t a matter of making money. It’s an addiction.

The act of gambling triggers a natural high that some people have trouble breaking away from, Everett psychologist Paul Baxter said.

“People on addictions, their addictions come first,” he said. “They’ll pretty much even come close to selling their children or neglecting their families to get their addiction.”

For people who are low-income or temporarily strapped for cash, buying a cheap lottery ticket can also instill a momentary feeling of escape, he said.

Rose Sargent-Hill, 36, of Everett, doesn’t play lottery games — “I can’t imagine throwing my money into it,” she said — but she does gamble.

After every payday, Sargent-Hill spends $20 at the penny slot machines at Quil Ceda Creek Nightclub and Casino. She recently won $1,000, she said.

It’s not about the money. “That’s my freedom for working hard,” she said.

Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.[/URL]