Tuesday, August 10, 1999
Lottery players yawned at Red Ball
8-week promotion didn't meet goal
BY MICHAEL HAWTHORNE
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS — Ohio Lottery officials bet the first major promotion in years would boost sagging sales, but the eight-week “Red Ball” game didn't generate the jackpot they expected.
While players of the Pick 3 drawing spent $3.1 million more than they did on the daily game of chance during the same period a year ago, sales fell short of projections by lottery officials.
Subtract the cost of extra advertising, informational brochures and retailer incentives, and Red Ball added $1 million to the lottery's coffers between June 7 and July 31, according to a sales report released Monday.
With encouragement from Gov. Bob Taft, state officials are trying new promotions such as Red Ball and spending more on advertising. The governor is concerned that declining sales could hurt public schools, which depend on lottery profits for a portion of their funding.
“We were hoping for more, but we consider this a success,” said Julie Ault, deputy director of problem gambling and manager of the Red Ball game.
During the eight-week promotion, a fourth ball was chosen from a machine after the daily Pick 3 drawing. If a red ball popped up, payouts were about 20 percent higher.
Six winners who also drew a red ball collected a combined $779,418 more than they would have otherwise, according to lottery records.
Lottery officials had projected the promotion would boost sales by 7.5 percent. Instead, sales went up 5.2 percent compared to the same period a year ago.
Other states that have tried similar promotions considered them successful, Ms. Ault said, because they attracted new players and helped stabilize sales.
“It would have been better if the red ball would have come up more often,” said Sandy Lesko Mounts, a lottery spokeswoman. “If we do it again, we may increase the odds.”
Mitchell Brown, a longtime state official whom Mr. Taft picked to revitalize the lottery, already has moved on to another idea: Mid-day Pick 3 and Pick 4 drawings in addition to numbers already chosen during the evening every day except Sunday.
Competition from riverboat casinos and multistate games promising bigger jackpots, such as Powerball, have sent lottery sales into a tailspin.
The decline, to $696 million last year from $749 million in 1997, is significant because lottery profits are set aside for schools.
If sales continue to plummet, lawmakers could be forced to make up the difference by cutting other areas of the state budget or by trying to raise taxes.
Mr. Taft's move toward more aggressive lottery marketing appears to reject recommendations of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, a nine-member panel appointed by President Clinton and Republican congressional leaders to study the rapid proliferation of gambling across the country.
The panel urged states to “ban aggressive advertising strategies, especially those that target people in impoverished neighborhoods, or youth anywhere.”
“The voters said they wanted a lottery, so we ought to at least make it viable,” Mr. Taft countered in a recent interview. “Otherwise, we're going to have to come up with dollars from another source or the schools are going to pay a price.”
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