NUMBER'S UP FOR LOTTO'S BONUS BALL

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 posted 10:33 AM EST

AUSTIN - Scrambling to rejuvenate sluggish ticket sales, the Texas Lottery Commission voted Monday to scratch the unpopular Lotto Texas bonus ball and return to a former style of game with better odds.

Beginning in late April, Lotto Texas will return to a matrix that was abandoned three years ago in which players will choose six numbers from among 54, with odds of winning the jackpot 1 in 25.8 million.

The revived style will replace the Lotto Texas bonus ball, which proved unpopular with players as Lotto sales continued a steady decline.

Under the bonus ball matrix, which had been in play since May 2003, players chose five numbers from 1 to 44 and one bonus ball from 1 to 44, almost doubling the jackpot odds to 47.8 million.

"People roundly dislike the bonus ball feature, the extra number you have to choose," said Lottery Commission spokeswoman Leticia Vasquez.

The bonus ball was added to help create mega-jackpots and, lottery officials hoped at the time, boost sales, but the opposite has happened.

As of mid-February, Vasquez said, Lotto Texas sales for fiscal 2006 were running 17 percent behind sales at the same period in 2005. And the 2005 sales, she added, were 28 percent lower than the 2004 sales on the same date.

Recently, she said, Lotto Texas, the lottery's so-called "flagship game," slipped into second place, behind the online Pick 3, in the percentage of total lottery revenue raised.

So far, in fiscal 2006, Lotto Texas accounts for 6.7 percent of total lottery sales, compared with 7.6 percent raised by Pick 3, Vasquez said.

The lottery has five online games and a number of scratch-off games.

Overall lottery contributions to the state increased in fiscal 2005, at slightly more than $1 billion, and, for all games combined, are running almost 4 percent ahead of last year, Vasquez said.

But the state's take is still below the high point of $1.2 billion reached in 1997.

The state's share of lottery proceeds is dedicated to education but represents only a small percentage of an annual public education budget totaling $33 billion.

Striking a balance

Lottery Commission Chairman C. Thomas Clowe said the change may not prove magical and noted that alternatives were considered.

"While there may not be an immediate and 'magic' fix to the decline of our Lotto Texas game, I feel it's our responsibility to take action today to remove the one feature we've heard players disapprove of the most, the bonus ball feature, and change Lotto Texas back to a pick-six game," he said.

But lottery watchdog Dawn Nettles, who publishes an on-line lottery newsletter, said the change was ripe for another failure.

"The people of Texas rejected this before," she said. "The odds are too great, and the people are not guaranteed to receive a minimum of 50 percent of sales (in prizes)."

Under the new game, players matching three of six numbers will win a guaranteed prize of $3, down from $5 in the bonus ball game.

People matching four of six or five of six numbers will share in a pari-mutuel prize payout amount (approximately $50 and $2,000 respectively), the lottery said.

Anthony Sadberry, the commission's acting executive director, said he believed the changes will strike a balance between what players had written in public comments and the fiduciary responsibility the agency has to raise revenue for the state.

"These changes will enable the jackpot amounts to increase by a higher amount in a shorter period of time, because we will be allocating a significant amount of sales to that prize level," Sadberry said.

"This, in turn, helps drive sales, therefore increasing revenue to the state."

Increasing the jackpot

The original Lotto Texas, which was changed in July 2000, required six numbers among 50 to win the jackpot. Those odds were 1 in 16 million.

But players lost interest because many games were being won when the jackpot was in the single-digit millions, Vasquez said.

The commission then started making changes, with higher odds, to increase the jackpots.

Lottery officials cited several reasons for the decline in Lotto sales, including the growth of casinos in nearby states, the growth of Internet gambling and huge jackpots offered by multistate games.

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