Want to become a millionaire? It’s why some people play the Texas Lottery.

But the really big money may not be what people are winning – it’s what they’re “spending” on lottery tickets.

In the state that was first to offer a $50 scratch-off ticket, there’s increasing concern that the lottery is out of control.

Who wouldn’t want to be like these Texans?

“We’re Randy and Chad, and we won a million dollars playing scratch off,” they said.

Meet Randy and Chad and Shirley.

“I won the lottery? Ahhh!” they screamed.

They’re all in ads for the Texas Lottery.

They seem very happy, and no wonder: They’ve won thousands, even millions, of dollars.         

But maybe the Lottery Commission should have come to one Houston neighborhood on the south side to film some of its ads. After all, nowhere in Texas do people spend more on lottery tickets than here.

“Fifteen-hundred a month,” one player said. “Yeah, if you do it, you do it. If you don’t, you don’t.”

The Southland Market on Reed Road may be little, but not when it comes to the lottery: It’s been the fourth-biggest lottery retailer in the city with one year sales topping $1 million.

Big money from an area that looks like it can’t spare a dime.

“I think the lottery is out of control,” Suzii Paynter.

Paynter is with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and she believes the lottery is preying on the poor.

“That has a moral and an ethical consequence, and we can’t act like it doesn’t,” she said.

Garnet Coleman is a state lawmaker. He was surprised to learn that nowhere in Texas do people spend as much on lottery tickets as in his district: $44 million in just one year.

“Most of the players are low or limited income families,” he said.

What’s more, a statewide study done by the University of Houston found that by far the biggest spenders on Texas lottery tickets were high school dropouts, shelling out $61 a month versus college-educated people who spent just $8.

The Texas Lottery Commission is headquartered in Austin.

“The Texas Lottery told the people in this state who were playing their games were college-educated, making $40,000 to $60,000 year and were white,” Rob Kohler said. “Well, the data certainly didn’t show that.”

Kohler worked at the lottery’s headquarters for 12 years. He said he never questioned who was playing.

“Sales were sales,” he said.

But then he quit to become a consultant and was hired by an anti-gambling church group to analyze sales data.

“You have an obligation to look at what its doing,” Kohler said.

But with so many people spending so much in these neighborhoods on tickets, are they winning millions like the people in the ads?

At the Southland Market, we couldn’t find any Mega Millions jackpot winners, and lottery records don’t show any either.

Maybe...the odds are against it. The Texas Lottery Commission, in its meeting last month, reviewed some of the same data in this report.

One commissioner questioned the accuracy of the work done by the University of Houston, suggesting not enough lottery players of all income groups were surveyed.