Readings on various official and unofficial gauges of the Nebraska economy have been dropping lately.So far, the Nebraska Lottery is not among them.
ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Friday, January 2, 2009 12:00 am
Readings on various official and unofficial gauges of the Nebraska economy have been dropping lately.
So far, the Nebraska Lottery is not among them.
The state’s main game of chance closed out fiscal 2008 with almost $122 million in sales. And the latest quarterly distribution of fiscal 2009 proceeds to the Nebraska State Fair and a range of educational and environmental projects is actually up $400,000 from a year ago, to $6.7 million.
This is mostly good news to Brian Rockey, marketing director for the Nebraska Department of Revenue, and for a revenue stream created mostly through sales of Powerball and other scratch games.
“We see stories coming from other states,” Rockey said, “and some states are up and some states are down. It depends on what’s going on with their respective economies.”
He thinks Nebraska’s strong agricultural base may have provided some insulation from hard times. He also pointed to some big Powerball jackpots as a possible contributing factor.
Pat Loontjer of Omaha, executive director for Gambling With The Good Life, isn’t quite as enthusiastic about the trend. Nor does she accept Rockey’s assessment of possible contributing factors at a time when many people’s incomes are being pinched.
Loontjer said poorer people typically buy proportionately more lottery tickets “because these are people looking for hope.”
“They want to get out of their circumstances, and the lottery is so deceptive in what it promises. It’s a buy-a-ticket-and-get-out-of-purgatory kind of thing.”
Annual sales reports since the lottery was established in 1993 show ups and downs through much of the 1990s. But there’s a pattern of consistent increase since 2000. In the past seven years, sales have almost doubled.
Rockey said he doesn’t base his marketing efforts on the presumption that gambling goes up as standards of living go down.
“Some people think that,” he said. “We don’t really, I guess, hitch our plans to one notion or another.”
As the lottery’s main marketing man, Rockey is interested in what keeps potential ticket buyers interested. That includes a change in the Powerball approach that was ushered in by a multistate lottery panel and takes effect Sunday.
“The idea behind the changes is to create larger jackpots more often,” he said, “because that, ultimately, is what the bulk of players in each state is interested in.”
Since Nebraska voters approved Amendment 4 in 2004, 10 percent of lottery money goes to the state fair. Most of the rest of what’s left over after paying out prizes — except for a contribution to the Compulsive Gamblers Assistance Fund — goes equally to educational and environmental causes.
When Amendment 4 passed, the fair’s expected share was about $2.2 million. The estimated 2008 total, which includes a contribution from the city of Lincoln as the fair’s host city, is more in the $3 million range.
A spike in lottery revenue has also given a boost to the Nebraska Environmental Trust and to environmental projects in Lincoln and across the state. Along with distributions to such organizations as Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever, the trust recently routed $1 million to the restoration of Holmes Lake in Lincoln.
Some of the educational money has gone for college scholarships.
Now, Rockey is expecting lottery sales to dip again in fiscal 2009 — to about $118 million.
“And right now, we’re on track, probably, to meet that goal.”
Loontjer, meanwhile, is expecting another battle over the state’s gambling future in the 2009 legislative session as horse-racing interests call for legalizing casino gambling at race tracks.
If that happens, Gambling With The Good Life will be there to argue otherwise.
“We’ve been successful at holding the line for 13 years,” she said.
Reach Art Hovey at 473-7223 or ahovey@journalstar.com.