Right move on ads

Ads for the state lottery have no place in advertising at sports events held by public universities, and Erskine Bowles, president of the University of North Carolina system, has done well to say so. He's also taken a position unlikely to win him friends in the Governor's Office, where the lottery is viewed as a wonderful benefit to North Carolina. And it's true that the university system benefits from lottery money.

But Bowles got to the heart of the issue when he said, "While it is legal for our students who are 18 or older to participate in the lottery, the lottery is nonetheless a form of gambling, and I feel strongly that we should not encourage gambling by our students." Amen, Brother Bowles.

Advertising and sponsorships by the lottery tied to universities have expired, and Bowles' directive will be an end to them. The state House already has passed a bill banning lottery ads at high school events, although a ban at public universities regrettably fell out of the bill. The Senate has yet to act.

This was bad business from the start, and even lottery supporters ought to recognize that. It simply didn't look right -- and by the way, was uncommon -- for universities to be advertising venues for gambling. For high schools, the impropriety was multiplied.

Lottery supporters argued when the lottery was being debated in the legislature that North Carolina wouldn't engage in the kind of breathless, high-pressure advertising used in other states. It was going to be tasteful. That was a questionable argument all the way around, but using the state's public schools to push gambling was woefully inappropriate.

Bowles knows now that the job of UNC president is a bully pulpit when issues affecting the state come to the fore. This time, he has preached exactly the right sermon.