New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has ordered the New Mexico Lottery to discontinue a just-released ground-breaking game that paired the lottery with Santa Ana Pueblo's Star Casino via a new scratch ticket.
"I am very concerned the new game sends the message that the state is promoting casino-style gambling," Richardson said Tuesday in a prepared statement.
The "LottoSino" game, which began June 14, will die when the four-month contract for tickets ends.
It was a first-of-its-kind scratch-off scratch game with prizes from both the lottery and the casino near Bernalillo, north of Albuquerque.
The executive director of the New Mexico Coalition Against Gambling, Guy Clark, had criticized it, saying the tickets amounted to a state endorsement for casino gambling.
did you get a chance to play rip?
I critics voice is louder than an echo in grand canyon.
must be giving campaign money to the govenor.
I didn't realize Bill Richardson is gov until I read this.... spent most of his life representing us in Washington.... must be good to have a middling job to come back to...
I hadn't seen the tickets on sale.... doubt I'd have bought one if I had.
Prolly old Bill did the smart thing.... the other tribes will have wasted all the trouble I'd bet they were going to getting their lawsuits ready.....We'd have kept hundreds of shysterlawyers busy for a lifetime arguing whether the Santa Anas could be allowed to do this without Sandias, Acomas, Lagunas, Mescaleros, et al..... seems to me it opened a can of noodles filled with worms.
NM probably has all the gambling opportunities it needs unless they're going to let the citizenry play a few hands of poker or blackjack down at the VFW hall or the local pool hall, which I believe they should.
We don't actually need a lot more strictly tribal monopoly, or government/tribal monopoly on gambling here.
Jack
Lottomike:
They had those tickees down at the convenience store where I bought my PB tickets yesterday. Almost bought one to keep as a souvineer, but decided it might be a scam.
Jack
I checked into this a bit further ..... looks as though they're going to be replacing this with two others:
1) A scratcher you can actually eat if you don't win anything, has a ground pepperoni and cheese taste. If it goes, they're going to expand the number of flavors offered,
2) A scratcher you sniff if you don't win.... provides a mild high that lasts a few hours, but not enough so's to keep you from driving. We're making too much on DWI arrests to take a chance on losing that. It's going to be called "ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH SCRATCH N SNIFF". It's expected to be a big hit with truckers, out-of-state travelers, high-schoolers and street people. Top prize is only a buck, and only one ticket in 10,000 has any prize at all, but they still have high hopes for it. The people who planned this one have been testing it for some time.
NM feels some responsibility to validate all those statements that the poor and under educated are the main players. We're already under educated, but you have to squat down pretty low to find someone who's poor by any standard that existed prior to 1950.
Jack
N.M. Lottery introduces first joint lottery/tribal casino game
was the headline that got someone thinking about the new scratch'n sniff game. Key word being joint.
Just seeing that word will get most people in NM taking deep breaths and holding them.
Jack