Poweroops

as "lottery addicts." And believe me, they know when existing scratch games "go stale" and promptly avoid buying them in favor of newer ones. I also see people I call the Lottery "regulars" in some stores I frequent, and they usually request the newest games instead of buying the older "stagnant" ones. Now, I don't begrudge any of these people for playing the Lottery - if they want to continue paying a voluntary tax to the state, that's none of my business.

So, having 60 to 100 separate and individual scratch ticket games for sale at the same time, and at nearly EVERY convenience store, supermarket, gas station, etc. etc. (even vending machines now), only serves to confuse the casual player and, given the shrinking odds of actually winning a meaningful prize (as opposed to getting only the price you paid for the ticket back), ultimately reduces the likelihood that these people will a) become long term players or b) will continue to be even casual players** . As the saying goes, provide too many choices, and the average person just gets confused. Which, as many companies are discovering, is actually bad for your business.

Now, I don't claim to be an expert on operating a state Lottery system. But common sense tells me that you don't need to retain a huge number of obviously stale games (and I'd estimate that at least 35 to 50 percent of the scratch ticket games hanging on the wall at your average 7-11 are stale, some approaching almost 1 year old) to "generate excitement in the Lottery" or to "maximize" your profits. Plus, fewer games means fewer expenses, when you consider the printing alone, plus the advertising and other publicity costs every time they release a new game, not to mention the costs of distributing all those tickets to the gazillion or so Lottery agents in this state (btw, have you ever heard of a store owner being DENIED a request to sell Lottery tickets) plus the costs of recalling unsold tickets once games are actually recalled (which is supposed to eventually happen per Lottery rules^^), seriously reducing the number of scratch ticket games in play at any given time could actually INCREASE overall profits for the Lottery.

** For the record, I used to be a casual purchaser (once or twice a month) of scratch tickets until about a year ago. Even though I always viewed "scrapers" as entertainment value and nothing more, I finally got tired of winning either nothing or just the price of the tickets."

^^ Source - a co-worker who ran a convenience store - and was a Lottery agent - for just over twelve years