Lottery Commission to hold weekly game show
Now THIS should be some good entertainment! Based on the characters I see buying scratch off tickets like there's no tomorrow at the convenience stores this should be a hoot.
Lottery Commission to hold weekly game show
by Jeff Packham
The Journal Record
6/27/2007
OKLAHOMA CITY – In an attempt to increase the odds of raising revenues for the Oklahoma Lottery, agency officials are moving forward with a lottery game show that is expected to air in October.
The Lottery Commission approved a fiscal year 2008 budget Tuesday that includes projected gaming revenues of $227.2 million. Gaming revenues are projected at $12.5 million or 5.8 percent higher than what is anticipated for this fiscal year, but the lottery game show and the introduction of a Hot Lotto to Oklahoma are expected to increase the numbers.
Jim Scroggins, executive director for the Lottery Commission, said the game show would be run by California-based Stewart Television, which performed the same duties on a similar game show in Missouri. Scroggins was the director of the Missouri Lottery Commission at the time.
“It was great fun in Missouri when we did it,” Scroggins said.
The concept of the show will be to choose nine contestants from a pool of scratch ticket non-cash winners and allow them to win cash through a random and competitive selection of numbers. The scratch-off tickets will be sold as Oklahoma Game Show Tickets, and are expected to be available to vendors sometime in July.
Sande Stewart, president of Stewart Television, said the show will help put a “face on winning” that doesn’t exist with the current sale of lottery tickets. He said the show features “everyday people” who might otherwise not be selected to be on a game show such as Jeopardy! or Wheel of Fortune.
The shows will be broadcast on KOKH-Fox 25 in Oklahoma City, and Scroggins said his hope is that the 30-minute game show will lead to it being picked up by a Tulsa television station, as well. The show will air each Saturday.
The show will be taped monthly with 36 contestants brought to the Tolbert Theater in Oklahoma City. Scroggins said that in Missouri, each contestant won a minimum of $500 and had their lodging and meals paid for one day.
The Hot Lotto will also be introduced to Oklahoma as a way to generate additional excitement to the lottery. Scroggins said this lotto, which is in 10 states, starts off with a $1 million pot and increases by a minimum of $50,000 each time there isn’t a winner. The average jackpot over the last year has been $4.5 million, Scroggins said.
The format of the Hot Lotto is the same as Powerball, which Scroggins said should make it an easy game to play for Oklahomans. He said the goal with introducing the game show and the new lotto will be to find new people to play the lottery.
“Lotteries succeed based on new things that you do,” Scroggins said.
The lottery is expected to finish the year with $214.7 million in gaming revenues, which falls far short of initial projections.
Scroggins blamed the shortfall on local competition, the need for additional gaming options and illegal gambling.
Scroggins pointed to tribal casinos and the horse racing tracks as having some effect on the lottery revenues. He said at least one casino was offering a game show while one of the racetracks was doing a form of the scratch-off tickets.
“They’re trying to emulate our business in some way,” Scroggins said.
Finding legislative support for video poker, keno or even pull-tabs would also likely help generate new lottery revenues, Scroggins said. He said Oklahoma potentially could bring in $388.5 million from a video lottery, another $82.9 million through keno and $10.6 million from pull-tabs.
Scroggins said slot machines found at various businesses throughout the state – those not at tribal casinos or at horse racing tracks – were also potentially cutting into lottery revenues. He said the machines were regulated by the Oklahoma Tax Commission but local district attorneys had not been vigilant in pursuing enforcement of the machines, which are prohibited by law from paying out prizes.
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