ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 8, 1996 TAG: 9612090083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITER
A SOPHISTICATED, $1.5 million-a-year microscope is trained on Virginia's gambling habits.
They know where you live.
They know your route to work, where you shop, where you eat, drink and sleep.
And most important to the team of researchers and analysts juggling numbers in a Richmond office building, they know how much money you have - and what it will take for you to wager it on the Virginia Lottery.
Telephone pollsters survey hundreds of Virginians every week to find out why they play the lottery, and how they might play more. Small groups meet every month to try new games, critique old ones and give state officials fresh ideas for advertising techniques.
And every day, lottery sales figures from all corners of the state are collected and plotted, revealing which television commercials and promotions are working, even where billboards should go.
The sum is a sophisticated, $1.5 million-a-year microscope trained on Virginia's gambling habits.
It is a system of perpetual change, one that has churned out new games and promotion ideas since the lottery's birth in 1988 - and it has kept the profits reliably on the rise.
"It's key that we constantly change and improve our game," said Cleve Corlett, the Virginia Lottery's senior market research analyst. "Players get bored after awhile. If we know when and why, we can offer something that keeps their interest."
Everything is calculated and tested in the nearly $1 billion-a-year business of government-run gambling. The odds. The top prize. The pictures on the ticket.
The lottery even employs a chemist who developed a "scratchability" test for the latex on instant tickets.
And, of course, there's how you play the game. The lottery introduces two scratch-off games a month, and every bingo ball, blackjack or bad guy on the tickets is road tested by the lottery staff to make sure people will want to play.
Otherwise they'd wind up with another "Catch of the Day" game, that monumental scratch-ticket flop with the green, lip-flapping fish on the front. It ripened in the stores for three years before officials finally tossed it in the trash.
The game was a stinker, by lottery standards. And it wasn't tested in focus groups or telephone surveys.
"We won't let that happen again," Corlett said. "People didn't like that fish."
Usually, they have more success. And they need to, considering that seemingly minor distinctions can pay out millions in state revenue.
Take the Lotto game: Players pick six numbers out of 44. The prize is $1million or more, and grows each time no one wins.
Having 45 numbers would be too many, according to the research. The jackpot would grow too high, too few people would win, and players wouldn't like the odds. Pick from 43 numbers and too many people would win. The jackpot would never reach the revenue-spewing multimillions.
Other examples abound. The polling revealed several years ago that Cash 5 - a $100,000 pick-five game - was getting a little dull. People didn't think they had enough chance to win.
After months of field testing and poll taking, the lottery changed Cash 5 so players could wager as little as 25 cents on one pick. Sales went up 15 percent. And they stayed there.
Last Christmas, the team noticed a hole in its strategy for a special holiday scratch-off game. Sales weren't bad, but the research showed players were reluctant to give the tickets away as a gift. The $2,500-a-year top prize was too high.
This year, the lottery has two holiday games. One is for $10,000 a year. The other is for $500.
Part of the impetus behind all this lottery shape-shifting is plain old good business. By constantly adding new games and tweaking old ones, the lottery's profits have risen every year since its beginning. It now brings in double the money lawmakers projected when voters approved a state lottery in 1987.
But change is also the only defense against the inevitable decay of any gambling game's revenue. Historically, all gambling - lotteries, bingo, casino games, horse racing - eventually makes smaller profits as player enthusiasm wanes.
"Obviously, over time you have fewer options," Corlett said. "But, hopefully, we'll keep finding them."
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by staff: Who's playing the lottery? color. KEYWORDS: MGRby CNB