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The Hodgepodge PageAll About the Texas Lottery ...Continued ...Brought To You By ...
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Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2002 - Regarding the comments about California's $193 million jackpot, yes, you are right. You can tell by the payout, $64,333,333 for each of the 3 winners that California is paying the amount they advertise and not the amount allocated from sales. They changed their rule but players didn't really know or understand the true impact. And yes, I will obtain the total sales figures and show you who did better - the players or the California Lottery. It'll be interesting to see how this "roll" fared. Wednesday, February 13, 2002 - A bittersweet victory! On
Feb. 12, 2002, the Texas Lottery Commission adopted a new Lotto Texas
rule but only after the proposed rule had been revised for a 4th time.
The 4th revision was that they changed the language from "may" back to "shall"
(pertaining to the amount a 6 of 6 winner receive) which is exactly what
players wanted. However, the bad news, they deleted the sentence that
says "no prize will be less than $5." I have a problem with this because
this is what they promised us when they added the 4 balls and the very
idea that any 4 of 6 winner could ever receive less than a 3 of 6 winner
seems terribly unfair. However, the chances of this happening are slim,
so, we'll wait and see what happens before making any plans to object. Anyway, we need to comment now on the Pick3 rule change. In closing, let me say that this particular battle is over and we won. Because of your comments and support, the TLC cannot pay just the "amount advertised" like they wanted - they have to pay all that is in the 6 of 6 prize pool too. I could not be reporting this news to you had you not supported me so here's a pat on the back for you and your efforts. They paid off. Also, because of this battle, the TLC has undergone a great deal of scrunity lately with much more to come. But I won't go there now, let's just move on and deal with the proposed Pick3 rule change which is to start having two drawing per day. If you oppose this plan, you must comment and all comments are due in by Feb. 23 - or sometime close to then. Send your comments to me. The TLC will not accept comments by email. I plan to post a form that you can fill out for ease of commenting and I'll try to have it up by tomorrow - 2-14-02 - by the way, Happy Valentines! Friday, Jan. 18, 2002 - Well, let's see how the TLC fared from the review conducted by the Council on Competitive Government. Let me share a few of the CCG findings with you. This report came out Wednesday. Did you know that the TLC has two ad agencies but they refuse to let the two agencies communicate with each other which resulted in overlapping ads and wasted revenues? Did you also know that the TLC used funds from the lottery games advertising budget for recruitment of minority vendors? They should've used "general agency" funds. Did you know that the TLC wants to purchase their own broadcast studio equipment but have never considered the cost to update, maintain and staff the equipment? They actually think they can be as competitive and knowlegable as vendors would be. Did you know that the TLC operated without a marketing plan for the entire 1st quarter of fiscal 2002? They actually approved advertising strategies without have a marketing plan. Did you know that the TLC only receives between 300 to 350 calls per day, 2 to 3 pieces of traditional mail and only 180 emails per week? From here down are my comments only. This data was not in the report but may have been included if those folks had known about it! Do you realize the TLC is proposing "flexible" payout rules for the 6 of 6 winners and are foolish enough to want to guarantee to pay the amount they advertise. Additionally, they claim they have no intention of "under-estimating" any jackpots to offset any overages they may have to honor for the "over-estimated" jackpots. I've never seen a company willing to pay more than what's allocated from sales. Have you? These are just a few of the things I thought I'd share with you. Somehow Ms. Cloud is managing a billion dollar state agency and making game rule decisions, yet she doesn't even spend (lose) a cent of her own playing the games. I don't think she has a clue as to how players feel. Not to mention the fact that she doesn't even listen to us when we voice our opinions. But somebody somewhere thinks she's qualified for this job? Did you know too, that the TLC started a new scratch game but never posted it on their web site? Yep, Cash Explosion, #209, began on Dec. 18, 2001 but the TLC never told players and never posted it as an "upcoming game" on their site. And I want you to know, I specifically request this information every other week in my ritual open records request but I was never informed that it was starting. Is this good marketing? I apologize for not keeping this page up - there has been lots of news that I should have reported to you but between the holidays, my being sick, my daughter being in the hospital and the new rule proposal, I just haven't had time. I'll try to do better this year. Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2001 - 10:45 AM - Today the TLC posted a notice for a Public Comment Hearing to be held on January 9, 2002 regarding the new proposed rule for Lotto Texas and Texas Two Step. Problem is, the new proposed rule has not been posted and they tell me it won't be posted until Dec. 21st for ya'll to read. With Christmas and New Years in between, that gives us very little time to study it, organize if necessary and comment if we have comments. Hardly seems fair but it must be legal?! So, ya'll stay tuned - they are sending me the new rule today. (Updated 4 pm: Well, the TLC managed to get the new rule posted on their web site though it's extremely difficult to tell what language is being deleted and what language is new. I will be posting the facts for you in the next few days. We will need to make comment because they still use the word "may" for the amount due the 6 of 6 winners - it does not clearly state that the 6 of 6 winner will receive "at least" the amount in the prize pool - and the percentages for each of the prize categories do not equal 55% of sales that players "shall" receive. Plus they allocate more money than necessary for the 3 of 6 category which means they will have access money which is part of that 55% due to be given back to players.) Also, I posted a story on Saturday, but I didn't put links up to the story until yesterday, about the TLC trying to bully fellow web site owners. This is an unbelievable story. I really hope you will read it. I realize now that the TLC goes after the rich and the poor alike! Here's a link to the story - I would really appreciate your viewpoints - pretend you sit on a jury - how would you vote? Click here to read the story. Don tells me he is working on another play for us. Maybe we'll have something soon. Monday, Dec. 3, 2001 - I have been given a new email address - lottoreport@lottoreport.com . Please change your records. Also - I think - all of my email links on my web site have been changed to reflect the new address! Saturday, Dec. 1, 2001 - My @home server is down so all e-mail messages to me are bouncing back. @home uses Excite who has filed for bankruptcy. @home says they will have this situation under control soon. I know I haven't posted on this page like I should have lately. I do have some very important things to share with you and I'm working on the strories NOW. I'll have them up soon. Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2001 - Regarding the lucky lotto winner from Lewisville on Saturday, Oct, 27, 2001. There was $13,686,220 allocated from sales for the 6 of 6 winner but it requires an investment of $14,023,056 to earn $24 million - the amount advertised. (Interest rates are way down) Therefore, to make good on the "amount advertised," the TLC will be out an additional $336,836. Can you imagine - the TLC is "purposely" proposing to re-write the rule to say they "will" pay the amount advertised instead of the percentage allocated to the prize category? I wonder, what's in it for them? Your welcome, your welcome, your welcome for putting the Lotto Report online! I'm always excited when we have winners and there's been lots of them from "targeting" numbers. I don't have time to post them all on the "Fun Page" - since I've followed this for so long I'm use to seeing what I could've won IF only ... But it is exciting to see a potential 5 of 5 win in three Cash 5 drawings in a row. All you had to do was "target" number 16 on Oct. 26; target number 26 OR 34 on Oct. 29; and target number 10 on Oct. 30th then you needed a little luck to have them on the same ticket! To see what I'm talking about, just get the drawing results and look up the numbers in the "Numbers" spread of the Lotto Report and you'll see that all the numbers drawn in those drawings were listed in the little paragraph under the specific number. Shoot, it sure beats having to pick 5 numbers from a group of 39 numbers. Anyway, thanks for all your emails. Having 3 or 4 out of 5 numbers keeps us in the game! Yes, I'm working on posting the Commissioners meeting held on Oct. 9th where they discussed paying the amount advertised instead of the allocated amount. But I decided to do a little research along the way and it's taking time. I'll have it up this week though. OK?
That's all for now ... Continued....click here to read more
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