Star Spangled lottery not a hit with players

Comment #9

Stack47 — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 23:49:53 GMT

I refuse to buy a twenty dollar ticket, that is robery.

The Raffles usually have more than 5 weeks between the start selling date and the raffle date and in that time period there are at least 10 lotto draws. Some people just prefer the one time draw with better odds and must win jackpots. Why is selling one $20 ticket robbery when selling somebody 20 $1 tickets over the same period of time isn't?

everybody knows that most of the people who play are poor and to put such a high price on a... [ More ]

Comment #8

Bradly_60 — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 21:07:53 GMT

Well with a state of over 8,000,000 people to sell 2,000,000 tickets isn't that shabby.

Here in Michigan we have never had a raffle take more than 11 days to sell out. We are currently selling one now and we have sold more than half of the 600,000 in just 5 days. Michigan does have less than 10,000,000 people in the state. People play expensive lottery tickets. They are the big money makers for the lottery. Not to mention a $50 ticket raffle that Michigan had that sold out in 3 days.... [ More ]

Comment #7

tony2222 — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:51:50 GMT

I refuse to buy a twenty dollar ticket, that is robery. the lottery really crossed the line with that and a lot of people feel the same way. everybody knows that most of the people who play are poor and to put such a high price on a ticked is upseting.

Comment #6

Stack47 — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:09:40 GMT

The only advantage I see of a Raffle over any Lotto game is that the Raffle winning tickets (or numbers) are drawn from the tickets sold. A Raffle is designed to have a must win jackpot and though a Lotto allows players to pick their own numbers and sells QPs, there is always a possibility the numbers drawn won't match any of the numbers sold. Which game is the better bet depends on the player because there are pros and cons for both games.

Ohio had a Raffle in April and didn't sell out all... [ More ]

Comment #5

justxploring — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:33:23 GMT

I'd appreciate an explanation, Coin Toss. What makes this better or worse than another lottery game in your opinion? As I wrote above, sometimes the odds look really great to me until I break it down. I mean, getting the chance to win $10,000 (200 winners) with odds of 1 in 7,500 (according to the FL site) sounds pretty good. Then I say to myself but there will be 7,300 people who don't win.

Well, there's an expression we've all heard that people who play the lottery are bad in math, s... [ More ]

Comment #4

Coin Toss — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:24:14 GMT

While the lotery likes to promoite the lesser odds raffles offer, they don't do a whole lot to point out that it's a $20 buy-in (price of a ticket) with a predetermined number of winners and a stagnant prize.

Comment #3

justxploring — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:57:40 GMT

Florida held a raffle on New Year's Day and those tickets sold out in less than 2 weeks. So they decided to have another one they claim for those residents who didn't get a chance to play (sure they did!!) and printed 1.5M for July 4. Over 1.3M have sold, so they should sell out by this weekend, but it's taken 3 times as long, starting on May 18. At first I figured it would take at least 2 or 3 weeks longer, because the snowbirds aren't here in May and June, but I've been told by several pe... [ More ]

Comment #2

liberal47 — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:53:00 GMT

They should have gone with the baby steps first. They mention the success that Michigan has had with the raffle style game, so they should have copied the payoff structure of the Michigan game as well.

Michigan started another raffle game two days ago with a total of 600,000 tickets. They have sold 200,000 in two days, and will likely sell them out in just six days. The limited amount of tickets, and much better odds of winning SOMETHING seem to be the big draw.

When you print over a mil... [ More ]

Comment #1

Bradly_60 — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:12:00 GMT

Wow...the lottery actually in a position to lose money and are going to do it. I can't belive they will be giving out all the prizes even though sales are not even 50%. The odds just got 2x better now with only have the tickets being sold. Anyone live in MASS....i'll send you some money to buy me tickets...haha.

Brad

Star Spangled lottery not a hit with players

Lottery Post — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 12:34:00 GMT

The Massachusetts Lottery's Star Spangled Sweepstakes is shaping up to be a Yankee Doodle disappointment.

With just four days remaining until the game ends on Saturday, prior to the July 4 drawing, sales of the $20 ticket have been significantly below expectations, said lottery spokeswoman Beth Bresnahan.

Through Monday sales hovered at about 30 percent of the game's 4 million tickets, or about 1.2 million tickets, have been sold.

It's a little slower than expected, said Bresnahan.... [ More ]