With the price of gas skyrocketing, the Florida Lottery is offering something new to entice people to buy tickets: free gas for life. It announced its first winners Wednesday night in the "Summer Cash" game. One winning ticket was good for $250,000. Five others won free gas for life, or $52,000 in cash. Fifty more won free gas for a year, given out in $2,600 worth of prepaid gas cards.
South Carolina Education Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue says, in most cases, cash is the best option for players. "We'll watch the Florida gas-for-life ticket and see how it benchmarks and if it's something we want to add to our repertoire. If there's demand for it, certainly we might consider doing that. But, at this time, we think that we've got the proper niche for our games, which is cash," he says.
After buying an instant lottery ticket Thursday in Columbia, Kenneth Jones said the offer of free gas for life wouldn't entice him. "Personally, I would prefer the cash because I say if I want to spend it on gas, then that's what I spend the money on, you know, instead of them just come out with a ticket that's going to give you gas," he said.
The free-gas-for-life and free-gas-for-a-year offers also might not provide all of the gas a driver needs. Winners of gas for life will get a $100 prepaid gas card every two weeks for 20 years. Those winning free gas for a year get a $100 card every two weeks for a year. With gas at $4 a gallon, $100 every two weeks might not be enough. But it is still free gas.
South Carolina lottery player Josh Williams says he might play a gas-for-life game if it were offered here, especially if cash were also offered. "Either one's good with me," he says. "I mean, as long as I'm a winner, I guess it's always good!"
A California state senator has asked that state's lottery director to offer free gasoline as a prize to get more people to buy lottery tickets, which would generate more money for schools. But California's lottery law limits how much it can pay out in prizes, and director Joan Borucki says that means the state can't afford to award free gasoline.
South Carolina's lottery appears to be doing fine without having to use free gas as an enticement. The fiscal year that ended June 30th was the second-best year ever for the amount raised by the lottery, $992 million. And Passailaigue says just from July 1 to July 10, the start of the new fiscal year, the lottery is already $3 million ahead of last year.
- news
- video
- weather
- sports
- on your side
- Entertainment
- How To
- Social
- Services
- Real Estate
- Classifieds
- About Us
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement