N.C. lottery staff win hefty bonuses

Apr 3, 2006, 10:36 am (7 comments)

North Carolina Lottery

The new lottery produced dozens of big-money winners Thursday, none of whom played the games.

With the first ticket sold at 6 a.m., lottery employees qualified for special bonuses.

The rewards are for starting the games before April 5, beating a deadline set last year by the state lottery commission.

In all, 162 employees, from the director to office assistants, will be paid $624,100 in bonuses.

The money comes from ticket sales, pegged at $2 million.

Lottery director Tom Shaheen will get the most: $50,000, on top of his $235,000 salary.

Others:

Lottery commissioners, appointed by legislators, set the bonuses to reward long hours and seven-day workweeks over the four months it took to build the operation. The bonuses were set by the commissioners, based on job level and start date.

By law, lottery employees and their families can't play the games.

Raleigh News & Observer

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DoubleDown

WOW !

The lottery players aren't the only winners in NC this week !!!!

orangeman

 Most state lotteries are corrupt to a certain extent.  Too much money being thrown around.  They don't deserve bonuses.  Remember the logo flap?  They are lucky they weren't fired enmasse.

Orangeman                                Hit With Stick

Tenaj's avatarTenaj

No NoI disagree Orangeman.  NC has not been up and running long enough to be corrupt.  Give them time.  I think they not only deserve the bonuses they deserve our congratulations and kudos for all the crap that they had to go through to get the NC Lottery started. 

I say JOB WELL DONE!  We fought for a lottery over 20 years, and it's high time for people to start respecting the NC Lottery, because we are moving forward.

Uncle Jim

I don't think these people should be awarded "bonuses" just for doing their jobs.  I think that money should have gone to the players in the form of prizes.  But I do have a question:

Is the $624,000 the advertised annuity value or the cash value of the bonuses awarded to the lottery employees?

Jim

PS Who cares if lottery employees are prohibited from playing the lottery?  They already made more in bonuses than most players will ever see! 

SassyOhio's avatarSassyOhio

I don't think these people should be awarded "bonuses" just for doing their jobs.  I think that money should have gone to the players in the form of prizes.  But I do have a question:

Is the $624,000 the advertised annuity value or the cash value of the bonuses awarded to the lottery employees?

Jim

PS Who cares if lottery employees are prohibited from playing the lottery?  They already made more in bonuses than most players will ever see! 

I Agree!  I SOOO agree  they are getting paid  WELL to do what they did and I am tickled that ya all got the lotto to play now TRULY! But I think that the PLAYERS who put the MONEY into it should have gotten that chunk....  And yeah that way more then the MAJORITY of the players will ever see  sad to say  but it is the truth ... but doesnt stop me from dreaming Embarassed

Bingo Long

Normally I'd have a problem with this, but this bonus program actually makes sound financial sense.  Not so much for Shaheen or the "top deputies" whose careers were probably at risk if they missed the deadline, but for the middle managers and peons who actually MAKE THE LOTTERY WORK it makes a lot of sense.

We've all dealt with government employees.  For the most part they don't work very efficiently.  They really don't care whether they make a sale, or whether the customer is happy, or whether the project gets done on time.  They're there for the paycheck.  Pay grades are based on rank and seniority, so unless you're in line for a promotion, your pay is totally independent of your performance.  The fact is, as long as you do an adequate job, you won't get fired, and most people can do an adequate job only working 80%.

I don't have sales projections for NC, but MA has over $10m per day in sales.  NC has a population 35% bigger, so even if half as many people play in NC as in MA,  NC would have $6m in daily sales.  They beat the deadline by 5 days, which translates to an extra $30m in sales.  Or around $10m in extra revenue for the state.

The $150k paid to the top officials is bogus.  Their incentive for meeting the deadline is that if they don't, they're the ones who would lose their jobs.  Everyone else at the lottery would keep their jobs no matter how long delayed the lottery was in starting.  So spending $500k to make them put in extra effort that brings in $10m makes sense.  Sure, it would be nice if they just worked hard anyway, but hard workers cost more than lazy workers, and really, once the lottery gets started, you don't need hard workers filling the chairs at lottery HQ.

Drivedabizness

Hey Bingo Long:

 

I wouldn't use MA to compare for a number of reasons...

 

First, MA has by far the highest per capita sales (and way, way higher payouts than NC will ever have under its current legislation) in the country. It's a real apples and oranges comparison. Years ago, when it was first getting going, MA sold only $30 million a year in Scratch tickets. If you compared NC and MA based on Year 1 vs. Year 1, you might come away thinking NC was doing a great job when they may not.

 

$2 per week, per cap is a very solid number for instant sales - add another buck once their full compliment of online games is installed and you get $3 per cap per week within the first two years.  That is a pretty aggressive target.  MA does well north of that.

 

BTW - New Mexico, where Shaheen came from, does about $1.60 (maybe a little more) in weekly per cap for all products.

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