Hoosier Lottery (and why I don't play it.)

I had a recent "experience" with the Hoosier Lottery. This "experience" inspired this post. First. let's take a look at the Hoosier Lottery. In 2013, business was good. They had a 9% increase and sold $934 Million in lottery tickets. 62% of this amount was paid out in prizes. That's 62%. This means, on average, if you buy $100 in Hoosier Lottery Tickets, you would win (on average) $62. If you are lucky enough to "break even" on your $100 wager, it means that somewhere in Indiana there's a poor slob who only won $24 on his $100 worth of Hoosier Lottery tickets. I mentioned that the Hoosier Lottery sold $934 Million in '13. The Indiana population estimate for '13 was 6,570,902. 75.7% of whom are 18 or older and can legally piss away money on these tickets. This is not a large amount of money per person, until you realize that not everyone is dumb enough to play on a regular basis. That's OK, a fool and his money....

So where does the money go?  According to their web site, 7% is paid in commission to the retailers. I am a salesman. There's no way that I'd work for 7%. The retailers agree to do this since they are already paying their clerks....so why not? Another 7% (over $60 million) goes to operating expenses. The remaining 24% goes toward the funding of Police, Firefighter and Teacher pensions. This seems a little silly to me. These public servants have an amount deducted from their regular paychecks for this purpose. This money is supposed to be invested so that the worker would have money for retirement. I guess it doesn't work that way. Instead, we take money from people who are really bad at math but who are really good at dreaming big. Don't get me wrong. Playing the lottery can be fun...for some people. Losing 38% of my bet is not a fun time for me. Sorry.

So what was my "experience" with the Hoosier Lottery? It was actually with their advertising agency. I was seeking some advertising from these people and I was refused. The reason was a bold face lie. I was told that they don't advertise with radio stations licensed outside of Indiana. I should point out that they advertised with us last year. Whoops!

Look, Hoosier Lottery, you don't have to advertise with me. It's OK.
I think your product is crap. I just discovered that your ad agency is, too.

You don't need to lie to me
.