Editorial that appeared Dec 23, 2003 ...

Editorial By Robert Becknell
Published in the STANDARD TIMES

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

It appears that the latest attempt by Texas lottery officials to get more spending money for politicians has gone awry.

While its true that many folks are playing MegaMillions, the turnout hasn't been what the lottery staff expected. Except for the many thousands of Mexicans who are crossing the border to buy tickets and a larger investment by players in Dallas and Houston, total sales are way below expectations.

According to information available at website www.lottoreport.com, the turnout for the first drawing in Texas was so poor that MegaMillion officials had to reduce the projected jackpot by $2 million dollars.

Note from Dawn Nettles - LottoReport.com - Here is how the Mega Millions jackpot was "projected" to increase versus how it DID increase (Texans began playing Dec 5th):
12/9/03 - $56M ... $54M
12/12/03 - $70M ... $61M
12/16/03 - $85M ... $71M
12/19/03 - $105M ... $85M
12/23/03 - $130M ... $100M
12/26/03 - $160M ... $125M
12/30/03 - $200M ... $150M
I think common sense says the Mega Millions group is somewhat disappointed in Texas. OH WELL, they can just get in line with the rest of us! If you'd like to see Texas' sales, click here.

Lottery officials are trying to cover their embarrassment with reports that MegaMillion boosted overall lottery income, but analysis of on-line sales, as opposed to overall sales, shows a decrease.

Dawn Nettles, operator of the lottoreport website, says lottery officials are withholding sales trend reports, a tactic she says comes into play whenever sales fail to meet projections.

Apparently, MegaMillions caused a major decrease in sales of Two-Step tickets. As result, lottery officials are planning a major change in the game, which will be announced next month.

Initial reports indicate that Two-Step, a pick 4 of 35 and a bonus ball from 1 to 35, will be moved from Tuesday and Friday to Monday and Thursday. Nettles suggests that the game structure and payouts could be changed - to give the politicians more and players less.

One has to wonder if lottery officials will ever recognize that the insatiable greed driving their actions to make more money is a boomerang. All of their changes to Texas Lotto and the other games have failed to produce anticipated profits.

While there are large numbers of people who will buy lottery tickets no matter what the odds are, I think Texans have once again demonstrated that they are not stupid and are spending their excess money in other ways.

The only on-line lottery enjoying success is Pick 3, a game with a prize structure lottery officials can't manipulate to their advantage.

Lottery officials are pushing their $2,000,000 Spectacular scratch card for the holidays. According to data available at the lottery website, 8,040,000 of the $20 tickets are up for sale. However, the fact that about 5.6 million of the tickets are worthless is information not immediately available at places where the tickets are sold.

Robert Becknell
San Angelo