N.H. man turns lottery losses into 1,500 wins

Oct 24, 2009, 9:57 pm (11 comments)

New Hampshire Lottery

CONCORD, N.H. — He might be the New Hampshire Lottery's winningest loser.

William Rudd, a 64-year-old retiree from Salem, has collected more than 1,500 prizes including food, gift certificates and other goodies under the state lottery's "Replay" program, which gives losing lottery tickets a second chance to win.

Rudd, who retired five years ago from his job in a warehouse, says his friends and family now know him as the "lottery guy," because he spends so much time collecting losing tickets and entering the information online, which is how the Replay program works.

They aren't big-money prizes, but for Rudd, they've added up.

Here's just a sampling of his haul: four bottles of maple syrup, 20 pizzas, 33 ice cream cones, 86 cinnamon buns, 92 steakhouse gift certificates, 161 chicken sandwiches, and 484 cups of coffee to wash it all down.

Oh, yeah. And a one-month fitness club membership.

"Sometimes I'll get a large stack of tickets and not win a single prize. Sometimes I win a lot," Rudd says.

In fact, there were only nine weeks between June 2006 and June 2009 in which Rudd didn't win at least one prize, according to an Associated Press analysis of data compiled by the New Hampshire Lottery Commission. At his peak, he won 109 prizes in April 2008 alone, including appetizers at T.G.I. Friday's and Canobie Lake Park passes.

But Rudd says he's no glutton, nor is he a gambling addict. He simply combines his own losing lottery tickets with those collected from a wide variety of friends and family members. And he's always on the lookout for tickets tossed on the ground outside grocery and convenience stores.

"What I do is accumulate tickets from other people and give them the prizes. I share the wealth," says Rudd, who estimates he spends about $20 per week on lottery tickets.

The 3-year-old program uses a points system that gives participants five points for each dollar's worth of tickets they enter. For example, a $5 scratch ticket is worth 25 points.

The points are used to enter monthly and quarterly drawings. Monthly prizes include items such as $100 gas cards and theater tickets. The current quarterly prize is a two-night stay for up to 18 people at a White Mountains inn.

Instant prizes also are awarded randomly — mostly gift certificates in the $5-$10 range. Winners of these prizes can choose to take the merchandise or exchange it for points that can be used to enter the monthly or quarterly drawings.

As of Sept. 1, participants had played more than 45 million tickets worth $142 million, and more than 415,000 instant prizes (merchandise and points) were awarded. That's around 2.3 prizes for each of the 180,766 people registered, according to Griffin, York and Krause, a Manchester marketing company that designed the system and runs it for the state.

Rudd won about four times the number of prizes than the next closest participant during the program's first three years. But there's no way to tell who entered the most losing tickets because about 75 percent of instant-prize winners take the points instead of the prize, and their identities aren't public.

In addition to the hundreds of food-related prizes he's won, Rudd has won museum passes, scratch tickets, ski area lift tickets, and salon gift certificates, which he passes along to his daughter.

His grandchildren have gotten into the habit of finding tickets on the ground and giving them to him, and he rewards them by taking them to sporting events. He's won tickets to auto races, baseball games, hockey games and more.

"My grandchildren love to go to those games," he says.

AP

Comments

Raven62's avatarRaven62

Congrats to WR and 3 cheers to the NH Lottery for the Replay Program!

rdgrnr's avatarrdgrnr

It'd be nice if more states had deals like that. Like TN maybe.

four4me

Quote: Originally posted by rdgrnr on Oct 25, 2009

It'd be nice if more states had deals like that. Like TN maybe.

ThatScaryChick's avatarThatScaryChick

Good for him. At least he was able to get something back from those losing tickets.

rdgrnr's avatarrdgrnr

Quote: Originally posted by four4me on Oct 25, 2009

Tennessee does!

https://tennessee.secondchancebonuszone.com/monopoly/

Thanks four4me, you're right. I wasn't thinking instant tickets. I was thinking state draw games.

I remember now hearing about second chance season tickets to the Titans games and thinking what the heck kind of prize is that?

I hardly ever play instants though. Might be nice if they had a second chance for other tickets too.

lottolaughs's avatarlottolaughs

"........four bottles of maple syrup, 20 pizzas, 33 ice cream cones, 86 cinnamon buns, 92 steakhouse gift certificates, 161 chicken sandwiches, and 484 cups of coffee to wash it all down."

484 cups of coffee? Wow. This article is kind of misleading. I thought his "wins" were much smaller money prizes, not junk food. I'm sure it feels good to win "something" but a cinnamon roll? C'mon! These lottery losses have sure turned into gains alright............. around the waistline!

wizeguy's avatarwizeguy

A lot of these prizes seem like they'd be given free to the lottery just to get folks to come in and spend more. I wonder what their budget is for this program? I bet it doesn't cost them much at all.

four4me

Quote: Originally posted by rdgrnr on Oct 25, 2009

Thanks four4me, you're right. I wasn't thinking instant tickets. I was thinking state draw games.

I remember now hearing about second chance season tickets to the Titans games and thinking what the heck kind of prize is that?

I hardly ever play instants though. Might be nice if they had a second chance for other tickets too.

The lottery might not do over the counter pick 3/4/5 ticket second chance drawings but a lot of stores that sell tickets have their own in house second chance drawing here in Maryland. Might be worth it to ask around your neck of the woods and see if any stores in your area do it.

kevinpflynn

The Tennessee program, and the second chance prize offerings in other states, are NOTHING like this Replay program.  In NH, they use EVERY instant or lotto ticket...not just losing scratch tickets that allow players who get special symbols to enter into another drawing.  This is a customer loyalty program.  (Does your state lottery know the name and email address of ANY of its nonwinning players?  Doubt it.)

What you don't see in the Lottery Post version of the story that is in the original AP version, is the explaination from NH's marketing firm and the independent analysis from a lottery expert who says NH's system is far more sophisticiated than what any other state is doing.

There are instant prizes, like free coffee and hamburgers; monthly prizes, like restaurant gift certificates and sports tickets; and quarterly "Ultimate Replay" prizes, like cars and vacations.

Remember...players get a chance to win all these prizes IN ADDITION to the cash prizes on the face of the ticket.  The value of every ticket is increased, but the price is not.

The people behind "Replay" are trying to get other states to adopt the program.  Know a lawmaker or lottery commissioner?  Tell them about Replay.

kevinpflynn

Quote: Originally posted by lottolaughs on Oct 25, 2009

"........four bottles of maple syrup, 20 pizzas, 33 ice cream cones, 86 cinnamon buns, 92 steakhouse gift certificates, 161 chicken sandwiches, and 484 cups of coffee to wash it all down."

484 cups of coffee? Wow. This article is kind of misleading. I thought his "wins" were much smaller money prizes, not junk food. I'm sure it feels good to win "something" but a cinnamon roll? C'mon! These lottery losses have sure turned into gains alright............. around the waistline!

But you forget...one of his prizes was a health club membership.  It's all good.

rdgrnr's avatarrdgrnr

Quote: Originally posted by four4me on Oct 25, 2009

The lottery might not do over the counter pick 3/4/5 ticket second chance drawings but a lot of stores that sell tickets have their own in house second chance drawing here in Maryland. Might be worth it to ask around your neck of the woods and see if any stores in your area do it.

Funny we were just talking about pick 3/4/5 second chance drawings, four4me.

I just saw on the VA lottery website that they're doing that til Dec I think. You give them 5 losing tickets per entry and I think there's 10 $500 prizes given out a week.

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