I combined data from two sources to get a view of how much the “average citizen” lost in legal gambling, across 41 U.S. jurisdictions. The per capita annual loss to lottery is much more variable than the loss to all legal gambling combined. Lottery thrives in states where other legal gambling is limited (and even in neighbors of those states). Total annual per capita losswhich seldom exceeds $500 per capita annually. The potential for improved lottery yields is likely constrained by this combined limit. All Legal Gambling 2016
Category: The Business of Lottery
lottery as a business operation
Go ahead, call us “the Lotto”…
The Lotto game, developed in the middle of the 20th century, was a big improvement over earlier games, but needed the scale that only government monopolies could at that time provide. Now, state lotteries offer big and small versions of Lotto under a variety of names. When people call us “the Lotto”, they may be recognizing that this is our particular franchise -not a bad thing, I suggest. NASPL Insights April 2016
How do you explain lottery odds to a player (or anyone)?
Now and then a player will challenge your published odds. Explaining can be a challenge- feel free to use this article, which might be helpful for people who work inside the lottery, too. NASPL Insights Feb 2016
Outlook for the Big Games in 2016
I used math models to explore how matrix changes in Powerball will likely increase sales (as we all want) and increase year-to-year variability (as nobody wants), and estimated the likelihood of a Powerball jackpot exceeding $1 billion in 2016 at about 17%. A few weeks after this publication appeared, that event did happen. As I remarked to some at the time, same odds as Russian Roulette (just saying). NASPL Insights December 2015
What Veronique Taught Me About Advertising
I irritated Veronique by suggesting that she had effectively projected a message as a model 30 years ago; she corrected me saying that the message was mine, projected onto her. Her talent was to be an effective screen or mirror. She went on to explain her view that affirmation is something everyone seeks, and that affirming the optimism of lottery players may be the best way for us to use advertising. We remember some examples, in NASPL Insights October 2015.
Changing Brands: A Conversation with Veronique
Veronique, who as a model helped build a brand and a successful company in the eighties, finds the brand now gone, while the company thrives. Her perspective, based on 30 years’ experience, is that the brand and the company are separable: the customers create the brand among themselves, and as the customers change, so does the brand. We speculate about how the 30-year-old lottery brand should be changing, in NASPL Insights August 2015.
What I Learned About the Lottery from the Economist of a Remote Pacific Island
Pio is an economist educated in the US Ivy League, who serves his native island of Zoa in many capacities, including Director of the Lottery. I was introduced to him at a meeting of economists in Seattle, and he opened my eyes to a factor that drives our year-on-year increases in Instant game sales. Economists agree: if money is getting cheaper, it takes more of it to express the same value, year after year. NASPL Insights June 2015
US Lotteries Review 2013- Recovery from Recession
I examined the recovery of the US instant business in particular, after instant sales in most jurisdictions were set back by the start of the Great Recession. I found that due to migration of the business to games of higher price point (and lower profitability), only in 2013 did the purchasing power of Net Win (or Gross Gaming Revenue) first exceed its pre-recession level. This work appeared in WLA US Lotteries winter 2014.
Outlook for the Big Games in 2015
NASPL Insights December 2014, I assessed the behavior of the Powerball and Mega Millions games in the eleven months since California joined the Powerball game. I found that while sales at jackpots below $100 million had remained fairly steady, the sales response to jackpots approaching $300 million was less than half what it had been during the “base period” between Feb 2012 (when Powerball raised its price to $2) and April 2013 (when California joined). I went on to project the probability distribution for jackpots greater than $300 million in the coming year. The difference between the games was stark: Powerball was more likely than not to have three or more such events, while Mega Millions was more likely than not to have no more than one.
The Dashboard According to Jade
In my continuing discussion with Veronique, Jade, and their colleagues at the ad agency, Jade emerged as the champion of the view that the end-effect of actual sales is likely the most sensitive measure for demonstrating the combined effects of all kinds of lottery advertising and promotions. Advertising efforts may aim to influence sentiment, and they may be effective, but the player is more likely to express this by spending an extra dollar, rather than by changing the way she responds to a survey question. Further, although our efforts may be focused on a particular game at a particular time, we hope the effect of these efforts is more diffuse and longer-lasting. This suggests a measurement strategy aimed at detecting improvements across the portfolio, which I am glad to implement as the Dashboard According to Jade.