Yes, but still. The essence of a tax is its involuntary nature. The mafia's numbers racket was a tax, or would be but for the mafia's lack of legitimacy (if you consider being a legitimate government a precondition for levying a tax). You played or someone broke your legs or burned down your house. Last time I checked, no state is doing anything like that. There are many things wrong with state-run lotteries, but they're not a tax. If you don't like the way the lottery is priced, don't play. Your kneecaps won't know the difference.
I'm not saying that state monopolies are good. I'm saying that people need to get over the idea that everything they dislike or disagree with is "a tax". It isn't. A state monopoly on fuel would be almost impossible to avoid, and you could reasonably assert that it's a tax (there would be debate, but your position would be reasonable). After all, even if you don't yourself consume fuel, almost every product you could possibly buy has to be transported from somewhere, and most transportation services available today use fuel. A lottery is nothing like that. The product, such as it is, does not form a component of the cost of any other product. All you have to do to avoid giving the state money is not play the lottery, which should be very easy since they are very up front about the fact that a ticket is not only -ev but much more -ev than any casino or cardroom game you could possibly play. If people stopped playing, the state would either give up its monopoly or (in a classic monopoly-monopsony dynamic) cut its prices. And in the meantime, ex-players would be better off as well.
When you buy liquor, you pay the market price (call it $10) plus an excise tax that the government adds on (let's say $2).
Imagine the government nationalizes the liquor business. The buy up every liquor company, and continue operating them the same way as before ($10 price + $2 tax). I think anyone would agree that this $2 would still be considered a tax.
Now let's say the government gets rid of the $2 tax, but bumps the price of liquor up to $12. The tax is still there, it's just implicit now.
You can absolutely avoid paying them by not drinking, and millions of people indeed do just that, but the fact that a tax is easily avoidable does not make it any less of a tax.
There are huge negative externalities to liquor which muddles the issue. If not forcing people to pay a carbon tax is a subsidy then the 'liquor' tax may not be an economic tax.
The "tax" part of the lottery is a component of the gambling part. The gambling part is the product people pay for. Just like a tax on cigarettes, or in some countries a tax on every consumer product (VAT). You can always avoid the tax by not buying the product or reduce it by buying cheaper products, but we still call it a tax.
Here in Pennsylvania, only the state can sell liquor (with a few exceptions - e.g. bars can sell drinks and producers can sell their wares which are generally wine here).
What about sales tax? Is that not a tax? After all buying things is voluntary, you could (and some people do) live a self sufficient lifestyle and not have to pay any sales tax.
