<<Cut in minimum Lotto Texas jackpot expected; move follows lagging ticket sales
The Associated Press
3/1/00 7:11 AM
DALLAS (AP) -- Lotto Texas is losing its luster, with high guaranteed jackpots for the twice-weekly game on the endangered list.
Weak ticket sales are a money-losing proposition for the state, which probably will lower the minimum jackpot for each drawing to $3 million within weeks, administrators say.
The state's other alternative is to join in one of the multistate, high-stakes games such as Powerball.
"I'm sad to say we've reached the limit ... with trying to hold out on our minimum jackpot at $4 million," Executive Director Linda Cloud told lottery commissioners on Tuesday.
"It is going to be necessary to make an announcement to our players in the next couple of weeks that we are going to have to reduce the minimum jackpot," she said.
Texas is now fourth in overall sales behind New York, Massachusetts and California.
Harriet Miers of Dallas, Texas Lottery Commission chairwoman, agreed that changes are needed and that players are sending that message by lack of participation.
"The people of Texas are voting with their money, and it's a pretty convincing vote so far," she said.
Part of the problem, operators say, is that for the first time ever time a jackpot winner has surfaced in each of the last five drawings. Too many people are beating the game's 15.8 million-to-one odds.
That meant the prize money that usually carries over to the next drawing hasn't been available to increase the jackpot and the total has been too low to attract more players.
"It's just a string of bad luck" for the state, said Larry King, director of Texas operations for Gtech Corp., the lottery operator.
The minimum Lotto Texas jackpot was set at $2 million in November 1992, when the online game started. The lottery's guaranteed minimum was raised to $3 million in January 1994 and to $4 million the following year. The payout could be higher, depending on ticket sales.
But Cloud said jackpots this fiscal year have averaged $7 million, compared with $11.4 million last year and $12.2 million in 1998.
"The only solution to this situation is to introduce larger jackpots for Texas players," she said.>> |
