Lottery official wants keno offered at Detroit airport

Kathy Barks Hoffman

Friday, Sept. 2, 2005 | 9:43 a.m.

LANSING, Mich. -- Grab your pencils. Club Keno could be coming to Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

Lottery Commissioner Gary Peters is talking to airport officials about having many of the 60 bars and restaurants at Metro offer the game, which already is being played in 2,000 bars and restaurants statewide.

"It certainly would be nice to have out-of-state people playing Keno and generating revenue for Michigan schools," Peters told the Associated Press. "People have time to wait at an airport and they could be playing Keno."

Airport spokesman Michael Conway said Thursday that talks are in the preliminary stages, and no proposal has been brought yet to the authority that oversees the airport and would have to approve letting Club Keno be played.

"We have been approached by the state and we have listened and we will continue to listen, but nothing concrete has developed yet," Conway said. "It's very early."

Although Peters didn't want to predict how much Club Keno could generate for the state if it was available at Detroit Metro bars and restaurants, early forecasts show the game could collect several million dollars more a year for K-12 education.

The state has struggled in recent years to pay school districts, which have seen promised funds disappear as state revenues slumped. Any additional money coming from lottery sales could increase money for education spending, estimated to be $12.8 billion in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.

Last year total lottery sales contributed $644.8 million to the school aid fund, according to the bureau's annual report.

Club Keno, which involves players trying to match up to 10 numbers that are drawn every 5 minutes and displayed on video monitors in bars and restaurants, offers a top prize of $100,000 for those who match all 10 numbers. Bettors can pick just one number, which pays $2.

The state launched Club Keno in October 2003 in 700 bars and restaurants. In its first year, Keno generated $204.5 million in gross sales, $50 million of which went to K-12 education. With two months left to count in this fiscal year, the game has generated $330 million in gross sales, with $82.5 million going to the school aid fund so far.

"That's incredible for the second year," Peters said, noting that Keno revenues are up 66 percent. "It's just been a phenomenal game for us."

It's difficult to know how many airports offer gambling or some kind of state lottery games to airline passengers. A spokeswoman at the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries in Ohio said she knows of airports in several states that offer such games, but said no exact number was available.

Peters said letting passengers play Club Keno at the airport would be good for the bars and restaurants as well as the state. The 2,000 now offering Club Keno statewide generally have seen a 10 percent to 20 percent rise in their core business, he said. With about 35 million passengers a year going through the airport, he said the potential for added sales is good.

Some restaurant and bar owners seem interested in offering Club Keno at the airport, Peters said, but he expects it will take a while to work out an agreement.

"The numbers are likely to be very large in terms of potential revenue," he said. "Certainly the airport is a large target of opportunity for the Michigan Lottery."

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