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Sales of instant lottery tickets are skyrocketing, and the only real winner is the Quebec government by PHILIP PREVILLE Sidebar: The urge to scratch The way Loto-Québec spokesperson Jean-Pierre Roy explains the situation, winning money has nothing to do with it. "These lotteries are entertainment, games people play to pass the time," he says.
In other words, the fun is in the scratching: pulling your change from your pocket, finding a shiny, sharp-edged lucky penny to scratch with, allowing yourself to fall under the spell of your shiny, sparkly ticket, and feeling the prepubescent joy of scratching and wiping away those nubs of scratch-goo, as though they were eraser leftovers in your grade six math workbook. Quebecers, it seems, are heavily predisposed to this kind of fun. Sales of instant lotteries in Quebec (widely known in French as "gratteux," or "scratchies") have gone up by 15 per cent in each of the last two years; in 199798, Loto-Québec sold over $467 million worth of them. Scratch lottery sales have now surpassed Loto 6/49 sales for the first time in their 20-year history, and they continue to rise. "They have become wildly successful for us," says Roy. "Scratching is the game people like to play." It's also a game at which people like to lose. About 30 per cent of all instant-lottery revenue finds its way into government coffers--in 199798, the government pocketed approximately $140 million in scratch booty, and there's more to be had. Scratch nation
Now, Loto-Québec can't create new scratch lotteries fast enough. Only two instant lotteries, the Loto-Bingo and the Mots-Croisés, are available year round. The rest stay inside your local dépanneur's plastic-covered countertop lotto-file for a period of two to three months. "Novelty is very important," says Roy. "When we introduce a new instant lottery, most of the tickets will be sold within its first three weeks. After that, sales tail off quickly." In the spirit of eternal newness, Loto-Québec introduces 20 to 25 new scratch lotteries per year--a rate of about two per month--and there is always a selection of about 10 different instant lotteries available at any given time. And many of them aren't particularly new. Loto-Québec recycles old ideas over and over again: Tic Tac Soleil resurfaces six months later as Tic Tac $10,000, or Blackjack reappears under the name 21. Loto-Québec, however, lauds its unique hybrid invention: scratch lotteries on TV. In games such as La Chasse aux Trésors, if people scratch three TV sets, they get to appear on the Chasse aux Trésors television show on TVA. Once on the set, they play Price-Is-Right-style interactive games to find out what they win. "Quebec is the only place that airs this kind of television program, and the show is very popular," says Roy. They need nine contestants per week to produce a half-hour program; they've printed enough winning cards to ensure they get enough people. "The show encourages people to play the Chasse aux Trésors game, and to play other instant lotteries as well." Stacked odds
But while instant lotteries technically pay out more money, they never pay out a large jackpot (usually no more than $10,000, compared with 6/49's $2-million minimum). And the odds are structured to keep people coming back again and again--and to get them to give their winnings back to the government. Consider for example, the Loto-Météo or "Weather Lottery" game. As with most instant lotteries, your chances of winning at Loto-Météo are very good--but your chances of winning anything substantial are next to nothing. Loto-Québec has printed 3,825,000 Loto-Météo tickets. Of these, over 910,000 tickets--one ticket out of every four--will be a winner. But only three of those tickets will net you the $5,000 grand prize (odds of winning: 1 in 1,275,000), and only 75 tickets grant you a prize of $100 (1 in 51,000). Meanwhile, the vast majority of those 910,000 winning tickets (864,000 of them, to be exact) are for prizes of $5 or less. More often than not, when people win a $2, $3 or $5 prize, they simply hand over their paltry winnings in exchange for more scratch tickets--which means that Loto-Québec just keeps pocketing the money it's supposedly giving away. Loto-Québec spokesperson Roy puts a different spin on that aspect of scratch-gaming. "People often buy one ticket for $1 or $2, and they'll end up scratching six tickets," he says. "That's good value for your money. "We could make more $20 and $50 winning tickets, but the odds of getting a winning ticket would have to go down, and people wouldn't buy them anymore. If someone loses 10 times in a row, obviously he won't buy any more tickets." Loner losers Despite all the odds-stacking and the never-ending stream of new games, Roy says the government isn't picking people's pockets. "Instant lottery sales are up, but 6/49 sales are down," he explains. "Over the last few years, Loto-Québec's total revenue has remained stable at around $1.5 billion per year. So it's not true to say that the government is trying to suck more money out of people." Why are instant lotteries so popular? Why are they displacing 6/49 as Quebecers' lottery of choice? Roy says he can't really explain it, but he points out the two key differences between the two lotteries: "First off, people don't want to wait three days to find out if they win--they want to know right away. Second, with 6/49, people often get together and pool their money for a chance at the big jackpot--it's more social. People don't pool their money to buy instant lotteries. It's something people do on their own." In other words, scratch lotteries are big sellers because they cater to loners seeking instant gratificiation. Sign of the times. Sidebar: The urge to scratch
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"Our biggest sellers are games like Loto-Bingo or the Mots-Croisés ("Crossword"), which we call 'extended play' games. People have to scratch dozens of little boxes. Often it can take up to 15 minutes to finish the card. People buy one for their coffee break or for the metro ride home. Even if they don't win, they feel as though they got their money's worth."
Scratch fever began in 1977 with a one-time lottery called the Loto-Québécois, which was designed to raise funds to pay for St-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations. Loto-Québécois was an instant success; shortly thereafter, Loto-Québec (the provincial crown corporation which runs all the province's lotteries) introduced its first Tic-Tac-Toe scratch game, and a trend was born.
And the more people play, the more they keep on playing. By law, lotteries must pay out between 30 and 75 per cent of all ticket sale receipts. Instant lotteries usually pay out around 52 per cent of receipts; Loto 6/49, by comparison, pays out about 45 per cent.