New Hampshire’s Lottery loses some of its own customers where it competes head to head with the Massachusetts lottery.
This only adds pressure to the state’s effort to try and raise more money from the games.
But luring customers back to New Hampshire may be a very difficult way to raise more cash.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s David Darman has more.
Ted’s Stateline Mobil station in Methuen, Massachusetts sits right on the border with Salem, New Hampshire.
That location is a pretty convenient spot to sell more than 12 million dollars worth of Mass lottery tickets.
Kim Parker from Windham, New Hampshire buys Mass scratch tickets there all the time, for what she says is a very good reason.
New Hampshire has lousy scratch tickets. Everybody knows it. It’s common knowledge. I mean the payouts aren’t as good, you know what I mean? I mean I could scratch a hundred nh tickets and win nothing, scratch 5 mass tickets and win something.
Instant ticket players in Massachusetts can win a grand prize of ten million dollars in a single play.
A similar ticket in New Hampshire pays a lot less for its top prize, just one million dollars.
The Mass lottery also pays more of what it takes in as prizes than New Hampshire does.
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The owners of Ted’s Stateline Mobil have taken advantage of the Bay State’s bigger prize levels by turning most of their gas station into a lottery retail outlet.
Co- owner Ted Amico says the renovations were made with New Hampshire customers in mind, since they make up 70 to 80 percent of his business.
We have fifteen to twenty people working. We have five machines like I said. You can’t do those kind of numbers with one machine and one person working.
One of New Hampshire’s top lottery officials says he’s aware that Ted’s Stateline Mobil is popular with New Hampshire players.
But Rick Wisler says his organization cannot compete with the Bay State’s larger payouts.
Wisler says the New Hampshire Lottery is held back by simple math.
They have a population base that supports a large volume of tickets. They print I believe a hundred million tickets in a game. We print two million tickets in a game. So simply by quantity of tickets allows them to offer larger value prizes in their games.
Governor John Lynch has made it clear he wants New Hampshire’s Lottery to become more profitable.
Specifically, he’s asked Lottery officials to increase profits by 20 million dollars next year and bring in a total of about 100 million dollars.
The push comes as the state looks for ways to close a possible 150 million dollar deficit in 2009.
Governor Lynch says he wants the Lottery to focus on improving its marketing effort.
Its important that they position well, that there’s a point of sale display within the retail stores. So to me marketing means the entire array of product positioning, selling within the stores themselves, as well as the product lines. And I’m certainly open to having discussions with lottery management officials as to the product lines we should be offering.
Lottery officials have said they don’t think they can raise the extra money the governor is looking for with the lineup of games they have now.
The lottery hasn’t added a game since Powerball, back in 1995.
Executive director Rick Wisler says the lottery can’t add any games without Legislative approval.
And he says he’d still like lawmakers to approve Keno, which has been brought forward before.
You know keno is sold in Massachusetts and is a very popular game and that’s something we raised an issue with a couple of months ago, when we suggested if revenues from the lottery were to continue to increase and meet higher and higher needs in the future, we’re going to need games such as keno to help us get there.
Lottery officials have also said they’ll need video lottery terminals to help raise the additional money the Governor is seeking.
But this year, the legislature has shown little desire to approve additional games.
The Senate tabled a gambling bill about a month ago, and the House has consistently voted against expanding gambling.
This state’s inaction has been a boon to Ted’s Mobil and two other establishments in the Bay State that sit on the border.
Together, they take in nearly 30 million dollars a year.
The success of these stores has helped the Massachusetts lottery become one of the most lucrative in the nation.
