Texas lottery wants to set up statewide raffle

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 posted 02:32 AM EDT

AUSTIN — Raffles to benefit churches and schools might be joined by a big-money, state-sponsored raffle-style game if the Texas Lottery Commission gets the legal go-ahead.

Commission Chairman James Cox asked state Attorney General Greg Abbott in a letter released Monday for his legal opinion on whether the panel has the authority to offer raffle-style games, which can give players much better odds at the top prize than games like Lotto Texas.

About 27 states offer raffle-style games, commission spokesman Bobby Heith said Monday.

The commission is reviewing the possibility of not only offering a state raffle-style game but the possibility of Texas participating in a multi-state game, Cox said in the July 16 letter.

There has been some discussion of offering a raffle in conjunction with the multi-state Mega Millions lottery game, in which Texas already participates, Heith said.

Raffle-style games differ from traditional online lottery games currently offered by the commission in that there are a limited number of tickets available and there can be no duplicate tickets. A random number generator prints all the tickets, rather than allowing players the option of choosing their own numbers.

"The odds are better," Heith said, noting that the odds of winning the Lotto Texas jackpot are 1 in 26 million.

When Florida offered its Holiday Millionaire Raffle last year, tickets cost $20 and, with a limited number available, the odds of winning $1 million were 1 in 250,000 compared to the 1 in nearly 23 million for its Lotto jackpot, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Different states have had different experiences with lottery raffles. Heith noted that a Michigan raffle-style game offering tickets at $50 apiece sold out in two to three days, but a Massachusetts raffle-style game with $20 tickets didn't do so well, with the state not selling enough to cover the prize payouts.

"I think it's a pretty neat concept. ... The best part about it is that your odds are considerably better," said Dawn Nettles publisher of LottoReport.com, which keeps a close and often critical eye on the Lottery Commission.

"I think it could be a good thing for the state and I think it could be a good thing for the people provided the Texas lottery is reasonable in their rule — which is highly unlikely."

But Nettles strongly opposes a multi-state raffle-type game, which she said would impair the odds of winning. "I would fight that tooth and nail," she said.

Suzii Paynter of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, which opposes gambling expansion, said she would want to review any rules or regulations offered by the commission when and if the game is proposed by the commission, but she views the potential move with caution and concern over how it might work.

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