Tennessee hoping to soon keep lottery dollars at home

Posted 7:16PM on Saturday 16th November 2002 ( 22 years ago )

FRANKLIN, KENTUCKY - Half an hour before sundown, nearly all the cars parked outside the Lucky Lotto store have Tennessee license plates. A sign out front boasts that this Kentucky lottery outlet, two miles north of the Tennessee line, just sold a ticket that paid $100,000. A few plastic letters have fallen off, but the message is clear: ``You could be next.'' Inside, Nashville housewife Carla Cooper, 45, displays a stack of ``Fast $250'' cards while her husband, Johnny, who changes oil for a living, plays a Bingo scratchoff game. They also pick numbers on a $29 million Powerball jackpot. They'd prefer to spend their money at home. And now that Tennessee voters have lifted a constitutional ban on a lottery, odds are they will soon be able to do so. ``It's going to keep a lot of dollars in Tennessee,'' said David Calhoun, 46, of Goodlettsville, Tenn. ``But the Tennessee lotto will kill these guys.'' ``These guys'' are the border stores in Kentucky and other states that for years have capitalized on Tennessee's lack of a lottery. They receive about a 5 percent commission on the tickets sold. ``Good Lord, we have them in every day probably 150 to 200 people a day from Tennessee,'' said Joel Carter, owner of Car-Mac's Mini Mart & Tobacco in Caruthersville, Mo. Usually, they buy more than lottery tickets, filling their cars with gasoline and stocking up on cigarettes and snacks, Carter said. Passage of Tennessee's Nov. 5 lottery referendum didn't actually create a lottery. But it cleared the way for lawmakers to start a lottery earmarked for college scholarships and other education programs. Last year, Tennesseans spent about $243 million on other states' lotteries. That included $117.8 million in Georgia, $81.1 million in Kentucky, $36.9 million in Virginia and $7 million in Missouri. The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations based those figures on ``very rough estimates.'' Proportionally, Kentucky has the most to lose. Tennesseans account for only about 4 percent of total lottery sales in Georgia. But in Kentucky, about 12 percent of lottery revenue comes from Tennesseans. That's roughly $1 in every $8. It's much more than that, of course, at the stores off Interstate 65 in Franklin, 40 miles north of Nashville. ``To what extent it's going to hurt us, we really don't know,'' said Lucky Lotto co-owner Arun Mahtani, who credits the bulk of his business to Tennesseans. The Coopers make three or four trips a week to Kentucky a practice they'd gladly stop if Tennessee had its own lottery. ``I don't care whether I win or I lose or anything,'' said Carla Cooper, reporting that she spent $29 on lottery tickets the night before and won $31. ``I just like doing it.'' For others, the lure increases with the size of multistate lottery jackpots: Powerball in Kentucky and Missouri and Mega Millions in Georgia and Virginia. ``I'm more likely to come across the border and play Powerball if it's up over $50 million,'' Calhoun said. Kentucky, Virginia and Georgia also offer a regional game: Lotto South. Georgia Lottery President Rebecca Paul said it's too early to say what effect a Tennessee lottery would have. ``It depends on how your enabling legislation is written,'' Paul said. Regardless, Paul said some habits would be hard to break; for example, someone who had bet the same six numbers on the Georgia lottery for years. ``I drink 10 to 12 Diet Cokes a day,'' Paul said. ``It would be real hard to get me to change to Diet Pepsi even if you put a Diet Pepsi machine right outside my door.'' Penelope W. Kyle, the Virginia Lottery's director, said a Tennessee lottery could help other states. Kyle, who estimated Tennesseans represent less than 2 percent of Virginia lottery sales, said she'd welcome the Volunteer State joining Mega Millions and Lotto South. ``We think there's going to be some synergy in having another lottery state in our border,'' Kyle said, mentioning joint advertising as a possibility. For the Missouri Lottery, Tennesseans' spending amounts to about one-half of 1 percent of sales. ``That's not significant,'' spokesman Gary Gonder said. But it's highly significant for retailers in a few southeastern Missouri counties. ``I get some customers who'll come in and spend upward of $2,000 on the Powerball,'' Carter said. ``If Tennessee gets in the Powerball, then I'll get a little worried.'' Chuck Strutt, who directs the Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association, said Powerball might be a possibility for Tennessee. Some suggest Kentucky might want to keep its neighbor from infringing on Powerball profits. But Strutt said ``helping the game grow, in the long term, helps improve sales for everybody.'' Kentucky is studying ways to recoup possible lost proceeds, lottery spokesman Rick Redman said. Ideas include keno numbers games that would be played in taverns and video lottery machines at horse tracks. Since 1989, Tennesseans have spent roughly $800 million on Kentucky lottery tickets. State Sen. Steve Cohen, the Memphis Democrat who has pushed 18 years for a lottery, is ready for that to change. ``They've used us long enough,'' Cohen said.

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