Low sales to blame
The Texas Lottery announced today that it will suspend sales of the multi-state Monopoly Millionaires' Club game following the drawing on Friday, Dec. 12.
Texas is one of 23 states participating in the game that was launched on Oct. 19.
Sales for the game have not met the lottery industry's projections and have continued to decline nationally since its introduction. After careful review, the Texas Lottery has decided to suspend sales of the game because of the prize liability risk created by the unexpected low sales of the game.
"This is a difficult business decision that is based on numerous discussions regarding the health and viability of this game, both here in Texas and nationally," said Gary Grief, executive director of the Texas Lottery. "Unfortunately, players have not embraced the game as anticipated, and our options to change the game while it is being sold are limited in scope and challenging to implement. I believe it's critical for the Texas Lottery to take a step back, reduce our liability risk, participate in the ongoing national discussions regarding the game's future, and carefully monitor what the next steps are."
Monopoly Millionaires' Club players in Texas will be able to claim prizes for 180 days following the draw date.
Cant say that I dont blame Texas...wished I lived in a state that you could win a buck.Not here ,EVER.
This is one of those games you have 3 chances to win. I think they should at least make $100,000 to $500,000
As soon as the first draw sales came in I knew this game was in trouble. You all have heard me discuss how they originally projected sales 4-5 times higher than what they have been. And the market research that SGI/G-Tech pushed to the lotteries was highly suspect. Even if all the states were participating, the sales would still only be around half of what was projected.
The irony of this is that Gary was one of the leading trumpeters for this game. He basically pushed it through Texas no questions asked and he pushed other states to join also. Now he looks a little foolish. At all the conferences, everyone was boasting how this would be a game-changer, yada-yada, and they worked so hard and so long. But the problem is their short-sightedness underestimated players. They thought they could dress up a bad bet as "many chances" to win but we are smarter than that. They should've just kept it simple, not too ambitious, and not screwing the player over. I think desperation may have played a part in this as well.
Now that Texas has pulled out, MUSL is trying to figure out how to fix the game. When one big house leaves, the others soon follow.
Not surprised, this game is worthless. I think I have played it about 4 times so far and won nothing at all, in fact no one I know has won a single dime on it. You keep doing that at $5 a pop and eventually people will stop playing which seems to be the case here. You can dangle all sorts of million dollar prizes out there, but if you don't give people their money or some of their money back once in awhile, you are done.
I would think that the other states set to join in 2015 just slammed on the brakes!
I did my own very unscientific research by simply asking anyone I knew (who played the lottery) if they knew how the game worked. Nobody had a clue about anything! Nobody understood the fact that it's a raffle triggered by some one winning the jackpot. Absolutely nobody understood the concept that the potential number of Millionaires Club winners of a million dollars keeps increasing even though the jackpot had reached it's max of 25 million dollars.
Most comments I heard were negative. People were less than thrilled about the cost, and nobody I asked wanted any part of being on a TV game show!
Why doesn't MUSL just come out with some kind of national raffle? Don't they know about the success some states like Pennsylvania and Connecticut are having with their twice annual raffles for a million dollars? THAT's what the players really like and want! G5
I would not be surprised if eventually they converted it to a plain raffle. That is the simplest and easiest concept to understand, and we don't have any national raffles. It probably wouldn't make some of the vendors happy, since they really benefit from the TV show and everything associated with that. I suppose it would be possible to still host the show and second-chance opportunities and simply make the game "one big drawing," say once a year. Like the McDonald's sweepstakes.
I think they just have way too much going on for a new game...in addition to the high cost dissuading players, you have people who do not understand the difference between the webcode and MMC number, or that the numbers are only useful if the jackpot gets hit (which would be rare if ever). Like you said, most players and even clerks have no clue how the game works. I was puzzled why they didn't start educating players in the months before launch, but instead started doing so with only a few weeks to the first drawing. It's almost like they just expected it to magically work without any preemptive effort.
Btw, now that one of the larger states has dropped out (8.5% of total sales), the prizes will increase even slower! This will probably strain the game more severely.
I'm only surprised it happened so soon.
https://www.lotterypost.com/news/281732/3827028
While I don't think the lottery playing public is stupid, many players just don't want to spend a lot of time and effort on understanding and playing any given game.
IMHO, that's why QP's are the choice of the vast majority of players. QP's are fast and easy. People buy whatever it is they want at the convenience store and tell the clerk "Gimme a quick pick for tonite's lotto" and they're out the door and on their way.
This MMC game is way too complicated.
People understand raffles. When I tell players about Connecticut's SuperDraw (I live in The State of New York) they always say "I wonder why New York doesn't have that?" I've had relatives who live in Florida call me and ask if I was going to drive over to Connecticut and get some SuperDraw tickets, and if I was, would I pick up a few tickets for them and mail them to them.
Why do people react like they do to raffles? Because they understand the odds are low (in terms of lottery odds they're low) and they know somebody has to win the top prize. They LIKE that!
The top prize winner of the 2013 Summer SuperDraw raffle got stuck in a traffic jam on an interstate highway in Connecticut, so he pulled off into a rest area to gas up and stretch his legs. He had never even heard of SuperDraw because he did not live in Connecticut. But he read that sign in the gas station advertising it. He said he "loved the odds" so he bought a ticket. You do know the rest of the story, don't you? Best dam traffic jam he was ever in!
I had a feeling this game wouldn't work out. People are driven to pay because of huge jackpots. There have been statistics that prove that. $1 million isn't what it used to be when jackpots are regularly $100 million or more.
We have a $5.00 game here (Bingo) and I don't like it. I don't have this game in my state at the moment, but I don't see myself playing it if we get in in 2015. With 5 bucks I can get 5 Hot Lotto Tickets or 10 Wild Card plays.
I might buy a Monopoly ticket out of curiosity like I did with the Bingo, but I am one of those people that does not care for lottery games with such a high price tag.
Every once in a while, when someone wins a 100 million plus jackpot for PB or MM, someone who most likely doesn't play the lotto, will comment how sickening it is for one person to win so much money and that they would rather have 100 people win 1 million each but what they don't understand is it's the huge jackpot that get most people to play the lottery in the first place.
Why am I not surprised? The promoters of this game have really stretched their limit with the $5.00 wager. Could they have sold it for $2.00 at most and had a better response? Your guess is as good as mine.
The game might end before I play my first ticket if the big states start pulling out. Many critics weren't too crazy about the cost of a ticket and the fact that it uses computerized drawings. MA Lottery never showed interest of joining this game.
I have been holding back and not wanting to misjudge it and the players to much, now that this has happened, screw it am giving the nitwit players that wanted this game a piece of my mind (not you guys on here ofc) and my honest truth of what's wrong with this game DNA!
This game DNA was created for all short sighted people who only play once the jackpot is 200+ million or so, and these players often say something like " why can't there be like 300 plus one million dollar winners vs just 1 big winner? I want such a game! blah blah blah -nitwits
The people who came up with this game, the lotteries said it was MADE for these nitwit players. They got all this large feedback, wanting national game that created hundreds of millionaires, the issue is same one effecting govt, the majority wanting it are nitwits.
Lottery god bless them for even trying, tried to give the majority of nitwits what they wanted, going if this is what they want, we give it to them!
What they failed to understand, is the players who wanted this in large part ARE NOT the players who build a game up to 300+ million in prizes!
The dependable players who raise sales and play often are ones looking for large jackpot's! Not capped small jackpots with better amount of lower prices.
Sadly only must hardcore was left to support this game! you have to really like spending money on lottery for hell of it and love monopoly to want to buy into this game and keep playing ever draw at these low prizes at this price.
I felt bad seeing low sales numbers, knowing nitwits are not playing, only must hardcore happy spenders who always play no matter what people jumping in at limited number at that. sense all the "I want 300+ different one million dollars winners" nitwits are not playing this game not going anywhere.
They don't play often if at all, so fact they hand created a lottery game for these people is mind blowing to me.
They are worthless players to depend on. and low sales and now pullout of one large state conform my thinking this is failed game and we deserve better.
$5,530,940 was sales for first ever draw for this new game, and was in fact also it's highest sales ever draw.
then next 2 draws was 4 million range, then last 4 draws was in 3 million range!
Soon it be next draws only 2 million range at this rate............ the game is dead.
People play to win a large amount of money. If they see jackpot gone up, they keep playing, and more and more players jump on and current players slowly buy more ever draw. sooner or later where a giant snowball that worth 200+ million in jackpot prize pool.
Lottery needs to give us a national 5 dollar jackpot game where largest amount of money goes for 1 big prize, it needs to GO TO JACKPOT. not 2nd place prize pool.
Now don't get me wrong in great world I love the idea of a raffle game, but I want a pure raffle game and this it is not it by a long shot.
I just hope this failed game makes it clear, capped games, share the wealth with hundreds of winners don't make a good selling game compared to high sales of a large jackpot game.
The whole reason i play is for fun of "what if", and 1 million dollars is not dream entertainment.
I want the entertainment of thinking " what if" about 100+ million etc. And form what I read on here, lots of pb/mm players are the same.
Small capped jackpot's are not entertainment.. It's sad they depend on a game show to create entertainment for the players. The game jackpot should be the entertainment.
I hope all states give up on this game as it is, and i hope one day we can get a national game with insane odds that can grow to 1 billion dollars or more.
Everyone will say it's crazy and ask why we need a billion dollar jackpot, why can't we have more winners , and for 1 billion jackpot, why can't we just create 1000 millionaires vs this insane jackpot "no one needs that much money" blah blah blah.
It's not about "needs" nitwits players, it's about entertainment and guest what, high jackpot's are the entertainment. and the sales of a billion dollar jackpot will support it self if made. unlike this failed game given to very people who Don't want a billion dollar jackpot.
Give players entertainment, give them billion dollar jackpot game!