Update: Lottery averaging 1,000 tickets sold per hour since Tuesday
By Todd Northrop
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas lottery players have been patiently waiting for the day to arrive: Wednesday is the last day to purchase tickets for Arkansas Million Dollar Raffle, and Thursday ticketholders will find out if they have won $1 million.
The Raffle will pay off big — in addition to the two winners of $1,000,000, there will be 540 $1,000 winners, and 600 $100 winners.
Until the end of the day Wednesday, there will continue to be four $20 instant prizes for every 100 Raffle tickets sold. The instant prize winners are also in the running for the big drawing.
Since Tuesday morning began, Arkansas Million Dollar Raffle tickets have sold at an average rate of more than 1,000 tickets per hour, bringing in more than $300,000 in gross revenue by 11 a.m. Wednesday. Total Raffle sales currently exceed $4.5 Million.
Tickets went on sale Wed., July 14, 2010, and the drawing date was anticipated to be held in September, 2010, although with the caveat of "or after all tickets have been sold, whichever occurs last". In February the drawing date was finally fixed at April 7, even though the tickets had not been sold out at that point.
More than 400,000 tickets had been sold as of last weekend, and heavy sales have been reported this week.
On Thursday, 1142 numbers will be randomly drawn. The drawing will take place at ASL Headquarters in Little Rock, supervised by security and external auditors.
The full list of winning numbers will be published on Lottery Post's Arkansas Lottery Results page soon after the drawing takes place — Thursday afternoon.
Prizes must be claimed within 180 days of the draw date, and winning ticket numbers must be identical to and in the same order as the numbers drawn.
Good luck players,
WOW the players had to wait 9 months for the drawing! geez
I guess Arkansas doesnt have many raffle players =)
I guess a good TV advertisement program does pay off! I kept track of tickets sold by buying tickets and as of today it looks like they just might make it to 500,000 tickets. For you "numbers" geeks here is my data:
Date-----------#OfDays---#OfTicketsSold--AvgPerDay
(bought) (between_________________dates)
7/31/2010 0 38,173 [first day I bought a ticket]
8/7/2010 7 15,509 2,215.57
9/29/2010 52 95,614 1,838.73
10/31/2010 32 28,411 887.84
2/16/2011 106 100,065 944.01
2/20/2011 4 8,639 2,159.75 (can you tell when the new TV ad started???)
4/6/2011 46 169,081 3,675.67 (yep, I have 7 tickets)
I originally started tracking so I could predict when the drawing would be held - assuming that they were going to stick to the original "drawing wont be held until all tickets are sold" montra. Back in feb and based on the avg sold per day and before the new ad campaign we were on track for a Nov 2012 drawing date!
Glad they decided to set a drop dead date, just wish the ad campaign did not do as good as it did, if you know what I mean.
As soon as they announced the drawing date the ticket sales picked up. Maybe now, the next time they do this they will set a draw date at the begining.
Them Arkansas hayseeds are buyin tickets like crazy now!
I heard that even Slick Willy went home and bought a few tickets.
He said if he wins he's going to add another wing onto the William J Clinton Presidential Library and Massage Parlor.
Personally, I've never wanted to go there. I've heard that they have the "blue dress" on display there. I have no interest in seeing that tawdry reminder of the bad old days. It just sounds so tacky. What's worse is I've heard that right next to the "blue dress" is a lifesize wax figure of Slick Willy smiling and winking and giving the thumbs up sign.
I just find that to be in incredibly poor taste.
The Arkansas Lottery reported a few minutes ago that all 500,000 raffle tickets were sold out. Someone else said it: they should have just stuck with a firm drawing date. This sales pattern happens all the time.
Can't say I haven't done it myself.
But it was usually buying an extra one at the last minute.