The drawing date for the Kentucky Lottery's latest raffle-style game is being postponed due to slower than expected ticket sales.
Dubbed the Lucky 7's Raffle, the winning numbers were set to be drawn and then announced on July 7th (7-7-07).
As of July 1st, there were still 305,730 of the game's 500,000 tickets remaining. With only 39% of the overall tickets sold, Kentucky Lottery officials decided to push back the draw date to allow players more time to purchase tickets.
There were several factors which contributed to the game's lower-than-expected ticket sales to date, said the Kentucky Lottery's Sr. VP of Sales and Marketing Steve Casebeer.
"The Summer months always see a slow-down in sales, as people are typically out of their normal routines due to vacations and the like. Whenever typical buying patterns get interrupted, sales trend downward," Casebeer explained.
"Plus, with gasoline prices in the neighborhood of $3 a gallon and a majority of our tickets sold at the very place people feel the pain at the gas pump, sales are going to be hurt. When disposable income goes down, sales follow the same trend."
Despite the drawing postponement, The Kentucky Lottery has committed to holding the drawing and awarding all 734 cash prizes. The drawing date will be announced when sales have reached acceptible levels.
"The date of the drawing will be announced two weeks prior to the actual event," Casebeer said. "Players will then have 180 days from the date of the drawing to claim their prizes."
Players can purchase their $5 Lucky 7's Raffle tickets from any Kentucky Lottery retailer that offers online [terminal-based] games. Tickets are sold in sequential order with a six-digit number, 000001 through a maximum of 500000. Players cannot choose their own numbers for the game.
On the drawing date, 734 of the ticket numbers will be drawn at random using a computerized drawing process. The first two numbers drawn will be the winning ticket numbers for the pair of $500,000 cash prizes. The next two numbers drawn will be entitled to the second prize of $25,000; the next 30 numbers drawn will be entitled to the third prize of $5,000; and the next 700 numbers drawn will be entitled to the fourth prize of $250.
When the winning numbers have been drawn, they will be available on the Kentucky Lottery Results page at Lottery Post (https://www.lotterypost.com/results/ky), and at the state's web site and phone line. Top prize winning numbers will be available the following day at all Kentucky Lottery retailers.
Lucky 7's tickets went on sale in May. It followed the Kentucky Lottery's first raffle game, the Million Dollar Draw, where 500,000 $10 tickets were sold in ten weeks.
I see they only sold a little over half of the ticket's they need to sell..I really think they should have sold $5.00 ticket's and cut the prize in half in order to sell fast..$500,000.00 in my mind is enought to win and people would buy the ticket's up faster at $5.00 a pop?..
I see KY listened to you for this raffle but it seems like the higher the cost of the ticket, the faster it sells out.
Yeah I see..I've been wrong so many times in my life and this won't be the last..I did buy 4 ticket's rather then my normal 2 I would have bought had it been 10 dollars..Oh well....
Tiggs95 said.........
I see they only sold a little over half of the ticket's they need to sell..I really think they should have sold $5.00 ticket's and cut the prize in half in order to sell fast..$500,000.00 in my mind is enought to win and people would buy the ticket's up faster at $5.00 a pop?..
I see KY listened to you for this raffle but it seems like the higher the cost of the ticket, the faster it sells out.
Yeah I see..I've been wrong so many times in my life and this won't be the last..I did buy 4 ticket's rather then my normal 2 I would have bought had it been 10 dollars..Oh well....