Governor among first to kick off Tennessee lottery

Jan 21, 2004, 5:27 am (Post a comment)

Tennessee Lottery

It may have been the first day of Tennessee's lottery and the first time Gov. Phil Bredesen had ever bought a lottery ticket, but he knew exactly which one he wanted when he walked into a market Tuesday.

"Tennessee Treasures," he said as he pulled out $2 for the clerk. "I like the name."

Bredesen, wearing a yellow-and-purple lottery button reading "Education Wins," wasn't disappointed when he didn't win a prize on his first ticket - or any of several follow-up tries - because the proceeds go toward college scholarships for qualifying Tennessee students.

"I didn't win anything, but some student won something," he said.

Bredesen, lottery chief Rebecca Paul and the lawmakers who sponsored the legislation creating the games all came to this centrally located city to help kick off the Tennessee Lottery's first day of sales.

"It's going for a good cause. It's kind of addictive, scratching that thing off, which I guess is what it's supposed to be," Bredesen said, drawing chuckles from dozens of onlookers.

First-day lottery players got to choose from four different types of scratchoff tickets, which cost between $1 and $5 and award prizes of up to $1 million. Online games, featuring the pingpong ball drawings for jackpots, are to begin in March, and Tennessee is expected to join a multistate game like Mega Millions or Powerball by summer.

State Sen. Steve Cohen, who pushed for almost 20 years to bring a lottery to Tennessee, said the start of the games means his "life's career work has been a success."

"The rest is gravy," said the Memphis Democrat, who sported a khaki lottery hat and button like Bredesen's.

The sale of the first tickets comes after 58 percent of voters in 2002 approved removing of the Tennessee Constitution's ban on lotteries. Lawmakers spent some six months fashioning the lottery legislation, which was signed into law by Bredesen in June.

Fran Shadden came into the Florence Station convenience store late Tuesday morning to redeem $71 in prizes from $32 worth of tickets she'd bought just after midnight. For her, the lottery couldn't come soon enough.

"The money we've spent over the years going across the (Kentucky) border to get tickets, that money could have been spent here," said Shadden, who plans to play several of the Tennessee games each day.

"I've been waiting for this," she said as she shook Bredesen's hand, her other hand clutching her winning tickets.

Paul said the state's first winning ticket was cashed in the eastern Tennessee town of Tellico Plains two minutes after the lottery began at 12:01 a.m. and at least one player had won $1,000 during the first 8 hours.

Bredesen, a former health care entrepreneur who is a multimillionaire, said his first lottery tickets won't be his last.

"I'll come back every once in a while when I stop in to get some gas, or something like that," he said, adding that if he won anything he would give the money to charity.

"It certainly wouldn't be appropriate to keep it, I think," he said before pausing to reconsider his words. "Well, how much money are you talking about?"

Jackson Sun

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