Garrigan
During the breakfast hour at Noshville, where the city’s bourgeoisie gather to be seen, heard and reckoned with, there probably aren’t too many chatterers holding court about how the integrity of the Tennessee Lottery has been compromised since a computerized drawing system was implemented in late July.
By and large, those folks in the Brooks Brothers suits or the $100-plus Keens aren’t tuning in anxiously during the midday for the Cash 3 and Cash 4 drawings. But pull into Zach’s Market on Nolensville Road and it might just be the subject of standing-around conversation. Those who play tend to be Tennesseans for whom lottery tickets are disproportionately more expensive, given their income. They’re the ones who have carried the success of an institution that is held accountable almost exclusively by a board of directors about as accessible as the Pentagon corner office. The players—who have played to the tune of $987 million in three-and-a-half years—are also the ones, by the way, who are funding college scholarships, which the lottery was founded to cover.
In other words, they shouldn’t get screwed any worse than they already are.
For anyone who’s been living under a rock, the lottery recently has drawn the criticism of players and lawmakers for a series of blunders that included a glitch with the new computerized drawing system the lottery started during the summer—in lieu of using actual Ping-Pong balls. That foul-up meant that, for three weeks, any player who selected two of the same digits in the Cash 3 or Cash 4 games had no chance to win. Only those who kept their tickets were allowed a refund.
Other gaffes included sending the wrong winning numbers to television stations, misprinting the Powerball jackpot on tickets and publishing an adult chat line phone number on lottery marketing materials instead of the lottery’s actual toll-free number.
Lottery officials have paid $80,000 for an audit of the system, and state lawmakers have scheduled a rare meeting of their lottery oversight committee, which has limited power to lean on lottery officials.
Gov. Phil Bredesen and, ultimately, the General Assembly wanted to establish the lottery as a freestanding, autonomous business enterprise answerable to a board of big-name Tennesseans (who generally don’t take phone calls from the media). Which is to say that change may not come from the lottery itself. But what’s clear, say state Sen. Jim Kyle and others, is that the lottery is getting significant consumer pushback on its new approach to drawings.
“They’re an independent corporation, and they can do anything they want to do,” Kyle tells the Scene, bemoaning the fact that, over his opposition, lawmakers agreed to create “essentially a franchisee with a monopoly.”
“I raised questions about what was going on and have talked about bringing a bill that would force them to [return to Ping-Pong drawings]. There’s a whole group of people, which we have discovered…who promote that as opposed to the computer.”
Lottery spokeswoman Kym Gerlock says lottery officials made the switch to computerized drawings in the interest of “millions in savings.” She says officials there are aware of the complaints—from both in and out-of-state—but says that lottery sales are actually up year over year. In addition, she says, the lottery’s contributions to education were almost 9 percent higher last quarter than for the same period last year. “We really don’t feel like the faith of our consumers has been broken,” she says.
Kyle, who says he’s never bought a lottery ticket, says he hasn’t heard from anyone at the lottery since publicly encouraging the oversight committee to meet, which it will do early next month. “I really thought of it as an opportunity for them to re-establish credibility, give them a forum. The whole idea is consumer confidence. If consumers don’t feel like they’re getting a fair shake, they’re not going to play a game. I saw it as a very positive way for them to come down and say, ‘We appreciate the opportunity to explain what happened, this is what we’ve done, this is never going to happen again.’ ”
Sen. Bill Ketron, co-chairman of the legislative oversight committee, predicts that the General Assembly will pass a bill in the coming session mandating a return to the Ping-Pong drawings—if the lottery doesn’t beat lawmakers to the punch, and there’s no indication that it will make a move to do so. “We need to re-establish the level of confidence in the statewide lottery for people to want to pull a 10- or 20-dollar bill out of their pocket and buy a ticket,” he tells the Scene. “Winning is a long shot, but they still want their shot.”
Meanwhile, Congressman Steve Cohen, who as a state senator worked for years to create a lottery to fund scholarships, urges a U-turn to Ping-Pongdom. “There’s no reason to have left the Ping-Pong balls,” Cohen says. “Integrity is what the lottery is about. If you’ve got something good, you don’t mess with it.”
In the end, this is a PR problem—with lawakers and consumers. What’s millions in savings if there’s doubt about the process and an inpenetrable cloak around the lottery offices? Lottery officials should take a cue from Coke and just bring back the classic.
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