Oklahoma Lottery sales hurt by lagging economy

Comment #9

dallascowboyfan — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:27:05 GMT

IMHO It also wouldn't hurt if they got better games. Arkansa, Texas and Kansas have better scratch of games and lottery games than we have in Oklahoma. Everytime DH and I go to a Cowboys game we always play Texas 2 step or Lotto Texas or get some of there scratch off, we even went north to buy some of Kansa Raffle tickets.

Comment #8

rdgrnr — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:33:55 GMT

Virginia has only sold about 70,000 of 330,000 with only 16 days left. I don't know if it's the economy or what but they need to do something. I just hope they revamp the games instead of dropping them. It wouldn't be that hard to attract more players with a little more imagination and a little less greed.

I can't find anything on VA's site about extending the deadline if they don't sell all the tickets (which could be good for those who did play if they keep the same prize allotments). It's... [ More ]

Comment #7

Todd — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:37:10 GMT

You know, I noticed several states dropped their raffles this year -- terrible decision IMHO -- even my own NJ! The NJ Lottery sold out their raffle every year AFAIK -- can't believe they axed it.

(You can see all the states with raffles on the Event Calendar page.

Comment #6

rdgrnr — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:12:53 GMT

For those of you in Rio Linda... ...

Comment #5

rdgrnr — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:08:08 GMT

Good point Todd. Instead of making the raffles a little more player friendly by reducing their take they seem to be willing to just drop them altogether and lose all that potential income. Typical bureaucrat thinking. There's a lot of potential raffle players out there. Give them a little better deal and they'll buy the tickets. Take 40% instead of 50% and see what happens. 40% of something is way better than 50% of nothing.

Ideally, they should probably look outside government and get some m... [ More ]

Comment #4

LckyLary — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:54:11 GMT

I am surprised that Hot Lotto sales would be ahead of Powerball. My best algorithms can't hack Hot Lotto because it's *computerized* and Powerball isn't so I do better on the harder game. I thought players don't like computerized games?

Increasing sales would increase the jackpot which would simply push a limited supply of money (representing a limited supply of purchasing power) to one or a few people. Those people may choose not to spend their money so quickly thus contributing to deflation... [ More ]

Comment #3

Tenaj — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:38:35 GMT

NC did the same thing with the raffle. One time and that was it.

Comment #2

Todd — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:35:26 GMT

Agreed. And where's the raffle? in 2007 Oklahoma had what it called it's 1st Anniversary Raffle , intending to have a second, third, fourth, etc., every year. They never got beyond one.

If it didn't work perfectly the first time, make adjustments, but you have to be bold to be good.

Comment #1

rdgrnr — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 06:45:13 GMT

How about knocking a number or two off the matrices Mr Scroggins? How about a little competition to shake things up? That's how it works in the private sector. Make your games more attractive and profitable and you won't have to worry about Arkansas.

Oklahoma Lottery sales hurt by lagging economy

Lottery Post — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:33:56 GMT

Lottery ticket sales declined about $11.3 million in the past fiscal year, mainly because of a downturn in the economy, Oklahoma officials said.

Powerball sales, which make up the majority of lottery sales, tumbled an estimated $7.6 million, partly because of the economy and a lack of significant jackpots, Jim Scroggins, executive director of the Oklahoma Lottery Commission, said Tuesday.

The Oklahoma Lottery is expected to contribute $66.7 million to public education for the 2010 fiscal y... [ More ]