Officials mull decision of decreasing the odds

Lottery officials say games could become tougher to drive up size of jackpots.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The agency running the Powerball lottery may decrease the odds of winning the multimillion-dollar jackpot to stem a record-setting run of winners that is keeping jackpots small and, the agency says, causing slow ticket sales.
"To some extent, you try to ride it out. But I think we'll need to make some changes to the game pretty soon," said Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Urbandale, Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association which runs the game. "We'll lose more than $400 million in sales this year."
Powerball outlets in 27 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, sold $2.3 billion in tickets in fiscal 2003-04, but are projected to sell $1.8 billion to $1.9 billion for the fiscal year ending June 30, Strutt said.
"Obviously, the bigger the jackpot, the more tickets you sell," said Rich LoPresti, president of Lubin and Smalley Florists Inc. in downtown Pittsburgh, which does a booming lottery business through a side ticket window.
"When it gets to $25 million to $30 million, it's at that point people realize that, even if they split it with somebody else, it's still a hell of a lot of money," LoPresti said.
The magic number
But Strutt said the magic number is much higher; Powerball sales really pick up steam once the jackpot hits $100 million. For example, a $14 million jackpot might draw $11 million in ticket sales, while a $250 million jackpot will draw $210 million in sales.
Powerball had eight jackpots of $100 million or more from November 1997 until October 2002 and eight in the nearly 2 1/2 years since. That's when the Multi-State Lottery Association bumped the odds of winning the jackpot from one in 80 million to one in 121 million by increasing the number of balls used in the drawing.
Gail Howard, a lottery expert from Las Vegas, said higher jackpots may not be the answer.
"The people, they're getting used to having these $200 million, $300 million jackpots," Howard said. "Pretty soon it will take a half-billion-dollar jackpot to get even a welfare recipient out of the house to buy a ticket."
Strutt didn't say how the game might be tweaked. Also, the state lottery agencies that make up the Multi-State Lottery Association would have to approve a change to the game.
The lucky dozen
There have been 12 Powerball winners so far this fiscal year, which ends June 30 -- including six in 2005 alone. That puts Powerball on pace for a record 17 winners this fiscal year, Strutt said.
Since the game's odds were raised in 2002, there haven't been more than 12 winners in a year. But an expert says changing the game might be unnecessary.
"The expectation that they'll wind up with 17 winners this year because they've got 12 so far assumes that the process is linear and it's not. It's random," said Bruce McCullough, an associate professor of statistics at Drexel University.
Pennsylvania Lottery officials said they would welcome changes to increase Powerball jackpots because sales are down there, too.
Through March 14, Pennsylvania racked up $190.1 million in Powerball sales this fiscal year, compared to the $226.2 million for the same period last year. Pennsylvania keeps half that money, said lottery spokeswoman Elizabeth Stackhouse.
Overall sales up
Despite the drop in Powerball sales, overall lottery ticket sales in Pennsylvania are up through February, from $1.6 billion last fiscal year to $1.8 billion, she said.
"We're absolutely not looking at dropping [Powerball]," Stackhouse said. "We are always looking at new games and new ways to enhance existing games."
Powerball can be played in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia.
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