Lagging lottery sales spur changes

M.R. Kropko

Friday, Aug. 19, 2005 | 9:40 a.m.

CLEVELAND -- Lotteries, many with declining sales of lotto-style games, are adjusting to multistate games that have astoundingly huge jackpots by trending toward in-state games that might offer less riches but also a better chance to win something.

The Ohio Lottery is planning to replace Super Lotto Plus, which has existed in various forms since 1987, with another game designed to be different from the 12-state Mega Millions game played in Ohio.

Maryland and Texas are also examining their lotto games, and Pennsylvania, a Powerball state, revised its one last year to increase the odds of winning.

The new Ohio game, to be called Lot 'O Play, will be available at online sales terminals starting Oct. 9, Tom Hayes, Ohio Lottery director, said. Its minimum jackpot will be $1 million and can increase if there is no jackpot winner and depending on the amount of sales.

Sales in the state's jackpot game have been sagging. Super Lotto produced about $113 million in revenue in the fiscal year completed June 30, down from about $161 million in fiscal year 2003, when it had to go head-to-head with Mega Millions.

"It's not unusual for us to change a game or start a new one. Typically, every game has a life span, and you have what we call game fatigue. We thought it was a good time for a new game that looks and plays differently," Hayes said.

Lottery experts say it's becoming common for states involved with a big jackpot game national in scope to revise their own jackpot games.

Maryland is revising its Classic Lotto game to focus less on big jackpots, said Buddy Roogow, the Maryland Lottery director. Rather than compete with Mega Millions, the idea is to have a state game that offers more prizes, he said.

And the Texas Lottery Commission on Monday discussed changing its Lotto Texas game, which is similar to Mega Millions.

The Multi-State Lottery Association, based in Urbandale, Iowa, runs the Powerball lotto game in 27 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Chuck Strutt, the association's executive director, said that typically a big, widespread jackpot game will cannibalize a state's jackpot game sales by about 30 percent.

"Most of our members, being smaller states, didn't have a large jackpot game, but those that did always tend to re-evaluate their product mix," Strutt said.

Pennsylvania has a revised game called Match 6. Pennsylvania Lottery spokesman Steve Kniley said Match 6 began Jan. 28, 2004, replacing Super 6, to create odds of winning something closer to the better winning odds of instant games.

"As Ohio is doing, what Pennsylvania did was try to create something different," Kniley said. "I wouldn't attribute that entirely to Powerball. Super 6 had been around for quite a while, and all these games have life cycles."

Lot 'O Play offers for a $2 play a field of 25 numbers within five horizontal and vertical rows.

The minimum wager will change from Super Lotto's $1, but the $2 play will buy 12 chances at a jackpot combination -- all numbers in any row across, down or diagonally. A player will be able to select numbers for the top row.

The odds for a jackpot hit will improve to about 1 in 6.3 million, from Super Lotto's 1 in 13.9 million. The new game offers other prizes of $1,000, $10 and $2, as well as an instant win feature worth $10.

The Kicker option in Super Lotto, worth $100,000, will transfer to Mega Millions.