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Staff photo by Doug JonesDieter Bradbury is the online reporter for pressherald.com, where this report initially appeared. Bradbury’s beat is designed to engage directly with readers and glean story ideas from your suggestions, Web postings and feedback. If you have comments, please post them at pressherald.com or send Bradbury an e-mail at:dbradbury@pressherald.com
SACO — Pat MacDonald slides a wad of dollar bills across the counter of Beachway Variety Store.Back in her direction comes a stack of Maine State Lottery tickets from the Pick 3 game, to be doled out to herself and half a dozen friends for whom she serves as runner.
“Myself, I think this is a rip-off,” grumbles MacDonald, wearing a good-natured scowl as she stuffs the tickets into her purse. “I don’t know why I play.”
But play she does, to the tune of at least $20 a week. That kind of habit has made her one of the lottery regulars at the Beachway, a small market that is one of the largest ticket agents in York County.
Last year the store rang up $604,932 worth of lottery tickets, behind a 7-Eleven in Kittery that sold $756,674 in tickets and the Hannaford store in Biddeford, where sales hit $815,205.
Statewide in 2007, the state saw a record $230 million in lottery sales.
Some bad news lurks behind those numbers, though. Lottery profits have stagnated around $50 million for three years, while commissions paid to ticket agents continue to rise, hitting $16.7 million last year.
With high gas and food prices expected to reduce lottery sales this year, state officials are planning changes in the lottery system - including promoting more profitable games and reducing agent commissions.
The Maine Grocers Association, which represents about 300 retailers across Maine, plans to oppose commission reductions. Those reductions will be considered Feb. 21 at a lottery bureau public hearing. “Maine retailers are a huge part of the lottery’s success,” said Amie Joseph, the association’s executive director. “We think it’s going to be harmful, especially to small-business owners.”
A 10-year evaluation of lottery revenues prepared for the Legislature last November showed lottery spending rose from $149 million in 1998 to $230 million in 2007. Sales climbed dramatically in fiscal year 2005, after Maine joined the multi-state, high-jackpot Powerball game.
At the same time, the state has introduced a constant flow of new instant games with ticket prices that range up to $5, $10 and sometimes $20. These games, with names like Hot Slots, Merry Money and Kings and Queens, offer scratch-off prizes of as much $1 million.
The variety of games, coupled with a crack at instant gratification, fuels a brisk traffic in ticket sales and produces a number of winners. At the Beachway, the paneled walls that flank the beer coolers and snack foods aisles are festooned with numerous banners proclaiming the sale of winning tickets – including one for $250,000 in January 2007.
Christine Martin, a Beachway clerk who plays the lottery herself, says the winning tickets sold at the store attract more customers, who can choose from 55 different types of games - most of them instant.
“They all think we’re the best store in town,” she said.
Dan Gwadosky, director of the Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations, which oversees the lottery says instant ticket games now account for 74 percent of lottery sales. So-called online games like Megabucks or Powerball, in which players wait for winning numbers to be drawn electronically, generate only 26 percent of sales.
“We may be an instant-gratification state,” said Gwadosky, “or it may be the long winters.”
The popularity of instant tickets is good news for store owners, who collect an 8 percent commission on instant ticket sales, compared to 5 percent on online ticket sales.
The Beachway earned a commission last year of $34,026, according to the lottery bureau. The top lottery sales outlet in the state, Lisbon Street News in Lewiston, earned a commission of $75,019. But the real winner is Hannaford, which owns six of the top 10 sales outlets in the state.
The big supermarket...
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