Massachusetts Lottery Stops Giving Free Tickets To Sports Events
Massachusetts Treasurer Timothy Cahill is "scrapping a multimillion-dollar incentive program that rewarded lottery retailers with free sports tickets, deciding that it had become excessively generous because of the hefty prices tickets command on the resale market," according to a front-page piece by Donovan Slack of the BOSTON GLOBE. Cahill, whose office operates the state lottery, said that awarding tickets to Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics games that "can fetch hundreds if not thousands of dollars was too great a reward." Cahill: "Because these tickets have become so expensive and hard to get, it just doesn't seem fair. As a public agency, there's a conflict with giving these out." Cahill's decision follows a Boston Globe story published in May that "detailed how the lottery paid millions of dollars in sponsorship deals to teams and received thousands of prized tickets in return." The story said that the lottery "used the tickets to reward high-performing retailers, but it also distributed them to lottery officials, their family members, and friends." The lottery has a "powerful market position as the only licensed gaming vendor in the state outside of dog racing," and that "clout allowed it to enter unique cross-promotional arrangements with sports franchises and receive large batches of tickets." Lottery officials said that "instead of sports tickets, the lottery will offer retailers more cash bonuses to increase sales, and perhaps other incentives, such as trips." Cahill added that the lottery will "continue cross-promotions with sports teams ... including using team logos on scratch tickets and advertising at sporting events" (BOSTON GLOBE, 9/24).
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