Lottery ticket sales, revenue drop in Maine
9/22/08 | 8 comments

Lottery ticket sales, revenue drop in Maine


By Mal Leary
Capitol News Service

AUGUSTA, Maine — Fewer Mainers appear to be trying to win a little or a lot.

Sales of lottery tickets, for online games and instant tickets, are below estimates for the first two months of the budget year.

“It’s a reflection of the economy,” said Lottery Director Dan Gwadosky. “People are spending $60 to fill up their car. They don’t have the disposable income they used to have.”

He said the sales of the popular instant ticket games were down 5 percent in July and August, and the online games, such as Powerball and Megabucks, were down 17 percent.

“That’s a little deceiving because online games are jackpot-sensitive,” he said. “As those jackpots climb, those numbers will be better. They go up and down with the size of the jackpots all year.”

The sale of the scratch tickets generates three-fifths of all the revenue of the lottery, but they are not as profitable as the online games with the large jackpots. The Powerball game alone accounts for 20 percent of lottery revenues.

“Scratch tickets are very popular,” he said. “But we think the economy is causing people to cut back on what they are buying, but not stopping.”

That is also what Independent Lottery Research, a Chicago-based consulting firm, has found in its national surveys of lottery players. The firm’s monthly newsletter for August indicated 20 percent of regular players surveyed are playing less often or buying less expensive tickets.

While Maine is seeing fewer tickets sold, 29 of the 42 states with lotteries are reporting increased sales. That is because some lottery players will cut personal spending in other areas to continue to gamble on winning the lottery, studies show.

“When normal revenue growth softens during economic downturns, states often consider expanded gambling operations among other options for balancing budgets,” concluded a report from the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York system earlier this year.

The report indicated that while lottery revenues for the states have been steadily increasing, the highest growth rate was during the 2001-02 recession.

Gwadosky said he believes there are instances where regular players have stopped playing the more expensive ticket games, such as the $10 and $20 tickets, but are still playing the lottery for the smaller instant games and the online games.

“The Megabucks game is a dollar, the Powerball is a dollar, two dollars with the power play — that is a pretty modest investment for the chance to win big,” he said. “We think there is some of that shifting going on.”

The lottery barely made its revenue target for the budget year that ended July 1, but Gwadosky said the lottery is seeking to increase revenue and change its mix of games and is using studies and focus groups to figure out what games Mainers will play and why.

“I think you are going to continue to see an impact on sales from the economy,” he said. “We need to come up with new ways to interest people.”

Gwadosky said that a couple of times a year Scientific Games, through its contract to handle all aspects of ticket design and production, conducts research trying to determine what tickets will sell. He said the lottery has an agreement with Scientific Games to pay only for the printing costs of tickets that are actually sold, so the company has a “strong” interest in producing only tickets that sell.

Gwadosky said he does not pretend to understand the motivations of those who play the lottery, relying on the studies to decide what sells. He said anything with a lobster on a scratch ticket sells better than other tickets, and he has no idea why.

For example, he said, some of the best-selling scratch tickets have been “Lobster Roll” and “Claws for Cash.” Another holiday big seller was “Sandy Claws” that featured a caricature of a lobster wearing a Santa cap.

He said that last year Maine had the 10th highest per-capita sale of scratch tickets in the country.

Gwadosky said that part of an effort to increase state revenues from lottery operations to $60 million from the current $48 million will be to bolster the percentage of online sales by getting the online machines into more retail outlets and through promotion of the games.

“We have a relationship, an economic relationship, with 1,300 businesses that are distribution points,” he said. “We contributed $16.7 million in commissions to small businesses across the state last year.”

Any entirely new games will have to be approved by lawmakers, he said. The big effort will be to get more retail outlets and “more effective” promotion.

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Comments
8 comments on this item
On 9/22/08 at 3:44 AM, Johninphilippines wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

I think people want a "hands-on" chance to win...or even take their chances of winning. What I mean by a "hands-on" chance...I mean by physically going to a casino or establishment and has the opportunity to place their bets, or play a particular game or simply, either roll the dice or pull the handle. Lottery games in the Philippines seem to be losing players. Not because the players have less money, it is because it seems to be too much of a hassel to take the winning ticket (usually out of town) to cash the ticket in...and the round trip generally equals the amount of the win. Sometimes, the facilities who accept winning tickets, their owners do not want to pay out the win amount, because then the burden of re-collecting the ticket debit creates problems for the facility owner himself. I don't know what the problem is in Maine, but the article's quotes seem to be an understandable amount of reasons. I think I would like the "Lobstah" scratchies, however! Real ones, too!

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On 9/22/08 at 8:10 AM, bgcarl01 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

That's nice, 10th highest per capita sales of scratch tickets, but where do we rate in per capita income? It's a sad trend. Before anybody bashes the ticket junkies too bad in the comments section, let's all be thankful that some people are only addicted to gambling and not booze, which I'm sure the sales of which have gone up with the economy going down. I'd rather have mommy and daddy broke instead of broke and drunk.

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On 9/22/08 at 8:31 AM, PoorMan wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

I think it is funning that the State of Maine has so much to say about casino's and they aren't the good for the state. What they meen to say is that it will cut into the lottery sales and they will not get 100% of the profits. Last time I looked I coulded find who regulates the lottery tickets winning percentages posted on the back of the ticket.

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On 9/22/08 at 9:12 AM, SpecialEd wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Here's a cool new lottery game you can play...twice a week, send me a dollar, and hit your head with a two-by-four. You will either get smart enough to stop throwing money away, or die of your injuries and clean up the gene pool. Either way, we all come out winners!

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On 9/22/08 at 12:38 PM, Tikitorch wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Good I am glad to see that people are being responsible in this bad economic time!! Maybe it shows we can handle gambling in Maine after all!!

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On 9/22/08 at 5:49 PM, Johninphilippines wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Right on, "tikitorch"...the people of Maine can handle gambling...without it.

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On 9/23/08 at 2:32 AM, Johninphilippines wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Ok, "bgcarl101"...you have it! That is what is presumably going to happen once Maine gets it's next gambling joint. Seems everybody is in on it nowadays...and Maine is their "call girl". This dude from Nevada who thinks he can come up with one hundred million dollars...and believe me, western banks in the gaming loan profession will absolutely give this guy the one hundred million "gino's" so he can develop the casino...it's easy-money...and model homes surrounding it and a recreational area to boot. Now the Maine Indians want "in" on another gambling casino operation. I bring it back to the state house lobbyists...and would the proper authorities watch these guys, in and out of the law, like a cancer researcher does with a microscope? Maine is getting "bashed around" like a red-headed stepchild with all these gambling enterprises popping up and in the works. Someone in Maine is enticing gambling...big time...and eventually, Maine's future will be changed dramatically. Wait and see. The whole features of Maine may eventually change, and not for the best. Gambling is an addiction. With so many people in Maine having severe financial problems to deal with as it is...wait until they get the gambling habit. The gaming industry always has extremely low prices on food and booze at their establishments...when the customers play the games and other games of chance. No need to go to a restaurant and pay $13.00 or more for a meal, when you can get all-you-can-eat for $4.00, plus beer and other drinks at literally 1/4th of the price you can buy them elsewhere. I have been there and done that, folks! Gambling may seem to be exciting, and with "perks", but you still have to pay income tax on your winnings...no escapes.

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On 9/24/08 at 10:05 AM, HotLotto4Maine wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

The Maine Lottery only needs to look to New Hampshire for a clue as to what to do. New Hampshire, in addition to 12 other MUSL (Powerball) members, offers the smaller, multi-million-dollar jackpot game "Hot Lotto", which, right now, has a far higher jackpot than T-S Megabucks (Hot Lotto, in just six years, has already created a jackpot of slightly under $20 million.) Also, the Hot Lotto game has its own multiplier, the "Sizzler" tripler, which began this year. Recently, the New Hampshire website was markedly improved; finally, the Hot Lotto jackpot amount (over $6 million) is listed on the New Hampshire Lottery's webpage (www.nhlottery.org). T-S Megabucks, admittedly, is a "New England institution"; some still play as a longtime habit, however, it is, and will always be, a small-jackpot game. Hot Lotto jackpots begin at $1 million; it began as a six-state game in 2002, with its membership more than doubling since. It probably will continue to add Powerball members; don't be surprised if Arkansas, assuming it approves a lottery, and offers Powerball, also goes with Hot Lotto. Finally, with the Powerball game again worsening its jackpot odds in January (with Florida coming on board), it risks losing players who've had enough with its tremendous odds; some of them might want a smaller game with a guaranteed million-dollar jackpot (T-S Megabucks begins at only $500,000).

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