RALEIGH, N.C. — In the never-ending effort to make buying a lottery ticket new and fun, the N.C. Education Lottery has come up with tickets that smell like barbecue when you scratch them.
Lottery officials will unveil their new BBQ Bucks scratch-off tickets Tuesday at Clyde Cooper's Barbecue in downtown Raleigh and at Queen City Q in Charlotte. The $2 scratch-and-sniff tickets will bring a chance to win up to $25,000 and to enter a secondary drawing for one of 10 prizes of 100 pounds of pork and a Big Green Egg to grill it on.
It's the first scented scratch-off game for the North Carolina lottery, as the state joins a growing number selling tickets with what are meant to be appealing aromas. Colorado began selling tickets with coffee, chocolate and bouquet scents as far back as 2008. Texas, Florida and Missouri have offered chocolate tickets, too, while Nebraska unveiled Sriracha-scented scratch tickets at its state fair over the weekend.
But pig products appear to be the hot thing in lottery tickets this year, with New Hampshire, Colorado and Indiana all introducing bacon-scented tickets. In Indiana, players of the Bringin' Home the Bacon game can enter a separate drawing for a chance to win $250 worth of bacon each year for 20 years.
North Carolina lottery officials say their tickets will smell like "smoky BBQ," side-stepping the issue of whether it is eastern or western style.
"I can tell you that there was intention to make sure the ticket's scent didn't try to live up to the real thing, which the lottery is content to leave to BBQ experts, like the folks at Cooper's," said lottery spokesman Chris Bushnell. "That's why we went with a smoky scent."
The odds of winning at BBQ Bucks, including break-even prizes, are 1 in 4.55, and odds of claiming one of the $25,000 top prizes are 1 in 888,000. The first tickets will be available at Cooper's Barbecue on Wilmington Street from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday.
The state sold nearly $2 billion in lottery tickets in the fiscal year that ended June 30, providing more than $500 million for a variety of education programs. Many legislators want to goose those sales by increasing advertising for the lottery and making a version of instant tickets available on the Internet or smartphones.
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I'm waiting for the Jack Daniels scented.
How about a flavored JD version
"The odds of winning at BBQ Bucks, including break-even prizes, are 1 in 4.55, and odds of claiming one of the $25,000 top prizes are 1 in 888,000"
--> The odds in NC keep getting WORSE for the players and MUCH better for the lottery.
"The state sold nearly $2 billion in lottery tickets in the fiscal year that ended June 30, providing more than $500 million for a variety of education programs. Many legislators want to goose those sales by increasing advertising for the lottery and making a version of instant tickets available on the Internet or smartphones."
--> No one should EVER be fooled by the word "Education" in a lottery, especially in NC. Money gets diverted to the general fund everyday and the documents prove it. Greed is all it is, when does it stop?!?
"$3.9 billion dollars raised for education over the last nine years can make us all feel proud."
--> Yeah, would be more proud of feeling like I contributed KNOWING ALL of the profit went to schools, but sadly it does not.
BBQ -scented scratch offs? How creative.
Appealing to the primal primitive needs for food is an interesting new take on getting folks to play the game.
That Pig on the ticket looks good to most folks but could be offensive to others.
Is there a subliminal message in this game ?
Thought BBQ was best in Texas? They use mostly beef.
I'LL DRINK TO THAT
Idaho had one last Winter Holiday that was supposed to smell like mint but smelled more like stale cat pee.
A guy who works at the liquor store keeps submitting an idea for one that smells like roses or horse crap. If it's rose scented it's a winner, if it smells like horse crap it's not. I can't remember what he wants to call it, but it's hilarious. Has to do with horse racing but I don't remember the details. He says he's gonna keep submitting it until they use it. LOL
So l guess if you bought a scracher ticket that yielded no money, you could always eat it if you hungry. It's a win - win situation all round.
I have a friend from N.C. who was in the meat business and I learned a lot about that region's BBQ from him. They don't normally use the tomato-based sauce we're used to here in Texas, but rather a vinegar-based one and actually, even that varies from one part of N.C. to another. You are right in that Texas BBQ means beef, but in N.C. it's pork.
We Texans like to think our BBQ is the best, but it depends upon what you like. I do like Texas-style BBQ brisket (no sauce!) , but Kansas City ribs are fantastic, the best I've ever had. I also think the Carolinas have the best pork "cue". Had a buddy from Louisiana BBQ some alligator for me once, was pretty darn good, better than rattlesnake. When I was a boy, I used to like to BBQ the rabbits I'd shoot - prob. technically not "BBQ", but I'd sauce them up when they were nearly done.
About the offensive thing; I think people sometimes just go out of their way to be offended by something. I don't know if that lottery ticket would put off an avid Muslim or Jewish lottery player because they're not actually touching or consuming a pig. When I was a kid, I used to raise show pigs and my first year to make the sale, a man who did business w/ my pop's company bought my hog. I always thought it funny that he was Jewish. (he didn't buy it to eat, but resold it like most of the other businesses did and the difference between what he paid and what he sold it for was tax deductible)
BARBECUE Scented lottery tickets? What in the world will they think of next...
to me.
Smells like
Dumb.
Gotta say, not a big fan of scented lottery games. The Hoosier Lottery had a bacon scented lottery scratch-off game. I found the game harder to scratch due to the scented latex. I wasn't a big fan of my fingers smelling like pork afterwards either. Oh well, For this game, I hope they use the scent of Sweet Baby Ray's! I wouldn't mind that.
I was wondering that myself. But then I thought, don't a lot of those convenience stores sell pork jerky or hot dogs with pork in them, even if the owner and/or employees are Muslim or Jewish?
The tickets smell like burnt skunk.
BBQ is HUGE here in NC. The big debate is eastern bbq vs western bbq. One is tomato-based, the other vinegar based. (And no, I don't know which side does which bbq. I just ask for non-vinegar bbq, which is hard to come by sometimes.)
And yes, the odds are getting worse and worse. I actually think the odds they post are not true - they are worse! I used to be able to get a winning ticket using their odds, but now, I don't win at all. If it was 1 in every 4 is a winner, usually the 5th ticket would be a winner (recovering the money for just that one ticket usually).
However, now I buy 10 of a ticket (over time at different stores) and I still don't win even the $5 I spent for that one ticket. It used to be if I spent $20, I would win $5-$10 back. Now absolutely nothing. And yes, I know I'm flushing that money down the toilet, but I figure that I win $1 on Powerball once a year (after buying tickets for half the year), the odds are better for me with scratch-offs.
Ugh... I should take up smoking instead.