N.H. lottery chief says $20 ticket price will not be high enough

Jan 27, 2005, 11:57 am (11 comments)

New Hampshire Lottery

A doubling of the top-priced scratch ticket sold by the New Hampshire lottery would trigger increased sales for only the next two to three years, the states lottery chief warned Wednesday.

Sweepstakes Commission Executive Director Rick Wisler advised lawmakers they could avoid a return trip by amending a bill and permitting the eventual top-priced ticket to go from $10 to $25.

The lottery would go to the higher-priced ticket over a period of many years, he stressed.

We manage our (top-rate) price points slowly to allow a product to mature, Wisler told the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

We would probably get two years of growth, possibly three years, before we needed to go to a $25 price point.

Wisler promoted Manchester Democratic Sen. Lou DAllesandros bill (SB 20) to raise the top price of such a ticket from $10 to $20.

The introduction of this in New Hampshire is long overdue, said DAllesandro, who chairs the Senate panel that heard the bill.

Scratch tickets generate nearly two-thirds of revenue for the state lottery with all the profits supporting state aid to education.

Sales over the past decade from those games have risen from $116 million to $175 million, DAllesandro said.

In 1996, lawmakers approved raising the ticket price from $3 to $5. The $10 ceiling was set four years later.

There are 11 lotteries that sell a $20 ticket, and Wisler held a copy of the nations leader - a giant-sized, multi-color, $30 ticket sold in Connecticut. Kentucky also sells a $30 scratch ticket.

At $20, DAllesandro said the commission projects the higher-priced ticket sold first in November 2006 would generate 4 percent more that year and 5.9 percent more in 2007.

The $20 ticket would allow the state to offer a top jackpot prize of at least $250,000, up from the $150,000 prize limit with a $10 ticket.

Scratch-ticket sales only recently have started to level off as the state has reached its peak under the current price structure.

Lempster Republican Sen. Robert Odell questioned the fairness of the scratch ticket game for the player.

Is there a worse bet than these scratch tickets? Odell asked Wisler.

In response, the lottery boss said that 63 percent of what is bet with the tickets is given back in prizes, compared with about a 50 percent return for those who play the multistate Powerball and the Megabucks game shared among Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.







Bill at a Glance

Nashua Telegraph

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tg636

How about a bill making it illegal to have a scratch ticket that costs more than $1?

qutgnt

What state offers the highest payback percentage scratch off game, anyone know?? Anything close to 80%?

DoctorEw220's avatarDoctorEw220

OH has a few games with an 81% payback, but i believe only 2.

DoctorEw220's avatarDoctorEw220

two things.



what $30 game does KY sell?



also, TX also sells a $30 game, and the thing is that you should only sell a game of that price if you know that players will be able to afford it. if players cannot afford it, it will not sell.

DoctorEw220's avatarDoctorEw220

and if a player has enough to afford several of the tickets, then they deseve to be mugged. seriously, 4 $30 tickets is about as much as i get in a paycheck., and to think if you do not win on any of those tickets. you would have a lot of explaining to do as to where $120-150 (insert a dollar amount that is a multiple of 30 there). that's right. they don't even guarentee a prize on every ticket. now wouldn't you be pretty mad at yourself if you bought a $30 ticket, or even a $20 or $10 ticket and did not win. that's money that could have been put towards a better cause.

RJOh's avatarRJOh

Sounds like that Rick Wisler wants N.H. to make it easier and faster for a lottery player to lose $25.  The player will save the extra time it takes to scratch twenty five $1 tickets and the State will save the cost of printing 24 other losing tickets.

RJOh 

fwlawrence's avatarfwlawrence

I bought a $30 ticket just last week. Didn't win anything though. At least the odds of winning are better on the higher priced tickets. On the two $20 tickets I bought, I won $20 on one and $40 on the other.

Maverick's avatarMaverick

Article said: N.H. lottery chief says $20 ticket price will not be high enough.

I think the stick up his arse is high enough.

MADDOG10's avatarMADDOG10

 geez, you talk about greed ! i wonder if the i.r.s. has looked into his tax returns lately....!

LOTTOMIKE's avatarLOTTOMIKE

are there 100 dollar scratch offs?  just wondering....

DoctorEw220's avatarDoctorEw220

not for another couple decades.

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