For years, Tony Kim watched as customers looking to buy gas, snacks or cigarettes bypassed his store here and crossed the state line into Kentucky in search of one thing: lottery tickets.
Beginning Tuesday, Kim hopes to draw that business back to his Favorite Xpress BP store when Tennessee launches its own lottery a venture almost 20 years in the making.
"We have to join the game everybody's doing it," said Kim, who with several partners, owns three other convenience stores in Clarksville and five more some 10 miles north over the Kentucky line. "You have to go where the money is."
The start of the Tennessee games, with proceeds earmarked for college scholarships, comes over a year after voters overwhelmingly approved a measure to lift the state's constitutional ban on lotteries.
Before the change, Tennessee was the only state in the Southeast without any legalized form of gambling, and one of just three in the nation along with Utah and Hawaii.
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia, Louisiana and South Carolina have state lotteries. Mississippi is home to the casino town of Tunica, Alabama has dog racing and Arkansas boasts dog and horse racing. Cherokee Indians run a casino in North Carolina.
Tennessee's lottery can't come soon enough for Kim, who believes the state and its businesses have lost money by watching and waiting while neighboring states make money off lotteries of their own.
"That was a big mistake, and we've lost a lot of revenue from it," said Kim, who hopes to bring in an additional $300 to $400 a day in ticket sales.
"At our stores on the Kentucky side, you can tell the difference in sales. The grocery section they don't give a hoot about; lottery is the main business," he said.
Tennessee argued over the issue for 20 years before approving it, but chief lottery sponsor state Sen. Steve Cohen who predicts $300 million in first-year sales says it's better late than never.
"We'll do well," said Cohen. "It would have been nice to have beaten Georgia and Kentucky, which we could have if in 1986 the House" had approved a referendum on removing the ban, as lawmakers dventually did in 2001.
"But life is today forward, so whatever we bring in is more than we would otherwise have, which is zero."
Lottery chief Rebecca Paul, who in September left the same position in Georgia to oversee the games here, says Tennessee benefited from watching the development of other lotteries over the years.
That includes writing Tennessee's lottery law to imitate Georgia's, which industry experts have called the most well-rounded lottery legislation in the country, Paul said. The law calls for revenue from the games to pay for HOPE college scholarships for Tennessee students, with excess money going to prekindergarten programs and K-12 building projects.
"HOPE scholarships is a No. 1 instance of where having watched how other states have spent money worked," Paul said. "HOPE scholarships will mean a great deal of difference to the students of this state."
Tennessee borders eight states, and Paul expects people to cross state lines to buy lottery tickets even from states that already have a lottery, such as Kentucky, Georgia, Missouri and Virginia.
Businesses on the other side of the Tennessee state line are bracing for a lull in sales when the Tennessee Lottery starts.
Jessica Dachtler is assistant manager at a Citgo convenience store, located at the first Interstate 24 exit north of the Kentucky line. She said she expects to lose customers, especially those who drive more than 80 miles from Manchester and Murfreesboro to buy tickets.
"We'll definitely lose some business," Dachtler said. "A lot of people say they probably won't come back."
Paul refused to estimate how much lottery officials expect to bring in from first-day sales, saying only, "We'll sell more than a million tickets, that's what I'll tell you."
Ernie Passailaigue, executive director of the South Carolina Education Lottery, expects Tennessee's startup to be as successful as his state's 2002 launch, the most recent until now.
"You're getting ready to have a wild ride there, but it's going to be a good ride," he said. "The people in Tennessee on balance have embraced this lottery, and will see the net beneficial results over time."
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