South Carolina becoming latest Powerball state

Amy Geier Edgar

Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2002 | 9:25 a.m.

IRMO, S.C. -- Renard Walker will be standing in line when the first Powerball tickets go on sale in South Carolina next weekend.

A frequent player of state lottery games, Walker said he's been eagerly awaiting the multimillion-dollar jackpots offered by Powerball twice a week.

"I've been playing all of them, but I haven't won nothing but a dollar, dollar, dollar," he said. "Got to have the million dollars. Definitely got to have the million dollars."

Walker took a break from his restaurant job Wednesday to check out the South Carolina Education Lottery's Powerball promotion, which includes a chance to win a fire-engine red Volkswagen Bug.

The car is filled with pingpong balls, and whoever guesses the correct number inside will drive away in the prize.

"I guess 1,500," said Linda Ingle as she peered into the car's windows.

Ingle, owner of Jo-Lin's Bridal and Formal Wear in Irmo, said she often drives across the Georgia state line to play the Big Game lottery when the jackpot skyrockets there.

"I have friends from Augusta, and I've always played with them," Ingle said. "Now I'll be playing here in South Carolina. No point in going to Georgia."

Powerball tickets go on sale at 11 p.m. Saturday, and the first drawing will be at 11 p.m. Oct. 9. Drawings will be held on Wednesday and Saturday nights. On those days, Powerball tickets will stop selling at 9:45 p.m. to let officials balance the numbers.

State lottery director Ernie Passailaigue said he anticipates high sales the first week of the new game and increased sales when the jackpot tops $100 million.

"Like any new lottery product ... you'll see a nice sales week. When you see jackpots get over $100 million, you will see those sales spike," Passailaigue said.

The minimum Powerball jackpot starts at $10 million, but the average advertised jackpot is $66.5 million. The largest jackpot was $295.7 million in July 1998.

Overall odds of winning some prize are 1 in 36, but odds of winning the jackpot prize are about 1 in 120 million.

Players select five numbers from 1 to 53, then pick one more number called the Powerball, which ranges from 1 to 42.

South Carolina will be the only state in the Southeast offering Powerball. Virginia and Georgia participate in The Big Game, but the closest Powerball state is Kentucky. West Virginia and Louisiana also offer Powerball.

South Carolina lottery officials are counting on players from neighboring states and tourists who normally play Powerball at home to buy tickets here. The game currently is played in 22 states, mostly in the West, Midwest and Northeast.

Lottery sales have slowed since the state games began in January. The Carolina 5 game lost some money because of big winners one week, and lottery revenue was slower than estimated in July.

Passailaigue said that's to be expected because the lottery is a seasonal business.

"It's sort of like calling Myrtle Beach in January and saying, 'How are you doing in tourist sales,' " Passailaigue said.

Lottery sales tend to drop in the summer because people spend their disposable income on vacations and back-to-school needs, said lottery spokeswoman Tara Robertson.

Along with seasonality, lottery sales are affected by uncontrollable variables such as high gas prices, officials say.

"A large proportion of lottery sales are at convenience stores. When that player goes into the convenience store and is spending what he had in his pocket to play the lottery in January, it's not there because of (rising) gasoline (prices). Certainly that has a factor," Passailaigue said.

The lottery's revenue goal for the current fiscal year is $615 million gross -- $172 million of that is supposed to go into an account for education expenses -- thanks to the addition of Powerball. The first two months of fiscal year 2003, which began July 1, the lottery transferred $21 million to the education fund.

However, officials expected to begin the multistate game by Labor Day and that start date was delayed because of a change in the setup of the game.

"The lottery anticipates that we will be able to meet our revenue goals and our expectations from the Legislature," Passailaigue said. "We have some challenges, no doubt about that."

But officials are counting on attracting players like Ingle, who said the big jackpots are "very enticing."

"The more it is, the more people we're going to have playing here," she said.