South Carolina Faces Lottery Woes

ROCK HILL, S.C.--South Carolina lottery retailers are bracing for a drop in sales as North Carolina starts its lottery with scratch-off games Thursday morning and joins South Carolina and more than two dozen other states in the multistate Powerball lottery in May, the Associated Press reported.

The outlook is bleakest along the North Carolina state line, where officials estimate over 80 percent of the lottery business in York County, which borders Charlotte, comes from the Tar Heel State.

But retailers all along the state line likely will suffer, since an estimated 12 percent of South Carolina lottery customers live in North Carolina, AP reported.

Rich Mione, vice-president of marketing for Wilmington, N.C.-based Worsley Companies, believes the South Carolina education lottery will see some declines in sales with the introduction of the North Carolina education ;ottery, especially on the upstate border near the heavily populated Charlotte, N.C.-area.

"The larger declines will most likely come when North Carolina introduces the multistate Power Ball game," Mione told CS News Online . "The management at the South Carolina education lottery (SCEL) is extremely creative and aggressive and I am positive that they have marketing plans to maximize lottery sales and income for education use in South Carolina. The SCEL has proven itself by working closely with retailers throughout the state."

South Carolina lottery director Ernie Passailaigue told AP his promotions staff plans live radio spots and T-shirt giveaways at retailers throughout the state to counter the immediate impact of the North Carolina lottery.

And, once the excitement of the start of the North Carolina lottery settles down, Passailaigue said in the report that more mundane concerns should keep North Carolinians crossing the state line to South Carolina, where gas and cigarettes are cheaper.

"Ninety percent of our tickets are sold at convenience stores with gas. If you live close to the border, your buying habits will typically be to buy where gasoline is cheap,"

"If you smoke cigarettes, you're probably going to be going to a South Carolina location," Passailaigue told AP. And those customers likely will buy lottery tickets at the same convenience stores.

South Carolina also can offer richer prizes for the same ticket price, Passailaigue told AP. North Carolina lawmakers have mandated that 35 percent of the state's lottery revenues go to education. South Carolina allocates 28.7 percent to education.

At the Shell station in McColl, SC, assistant manager Nieisha Harrington told AP she doesn't expect a big drop in business from North Carolina.

"We're not worried. As long as it's cheaper gas, they're still going to come in and buy lotto," Harrington said.

South Carolina's second-highest lottery retailer, the Borderline Mini Mart on U.S. 321 in Clover, plans to focus on customer service.

"You'd be foolish to think you're not going to lose some," store owner Victor Boulware said in the report. "But realistically, I think we'll still do a good amount of business."

Next Saturday, two days after North Carolina starts selling tickets, Boulware plans a customer appreciation day with giveaways to keep his customers coming in.

But a lottery expert and former editor at Gambling Times magazine told AP players are more concerned with convenience than anything else.

"I'm sorry to break the bad news. Everybody wants to have a lottery ticket and be in on the action, but they want to do what's most convenient." Gail Howard told AP. "And convenient is up the block and not to the border."