On April 5, 2007, with the growing Club Keno sales and the interest by the playing public in the Millionaire Raffle Games, the Michigan Lottery is earning record breaking revenues. Lottery Commissioner, Gary Peter, said that the past 6 months have been record breaking for the Lottery in the state and that they are on the right track to having a good year.
The lottery sales have risen to about $1.2 billion, an improvement of about 3%. The school aid fund also received a total of $388 million, which is a 5.4% percent improvement compared to the same period last year. According to Gary Peter, the Club Keno sales continue to improve.
The game of Keno is available in many bars and restaurants where interested players can place their wagers and then just wait for the results to be shown on television screens. A new game will start every 5 minutes. The Millionaire Raffle Game is also showing exceptional results. Officials said that they expected to sell the tickets in 3 weeks, but instead they have been able to sell all of the tickets in just 5 ½ days.
Peter commented that it is a bit difficult to keep a good showing with a difficult economy and aside from the fact that there are 17 tribal casinos scattered across the state of Michigan, 3 tribal casinos in Detroit and 2 casinos in Ontario. It is also one of the reasons why they are fighting hard against the $10 million cut in the $17.6 million advertisement budget by the lottery.
Republicans in the senate said that while the cuts will have a bad effect, every state program should share the same burden. The House has not done anything yet regarding the cuts and Gov. Jennifer Granholm opposes any large cuts on the advertisement budget of the state lottery.
Peter said that they have been bringing good business to Michigan's government and a good business should not experience these kind of cuts.
Tuesday, April 17 , 2007
John M. Thorpe
