State Lottery head targets young adults

LYNN – Lynn native Mark Cavanagh, executive director of the Massachusetts Lottery, says business is booming but keeping the emerging generation of young adults interested in traditional gambling has its challenges.Appointed to the post in January 2007 by state Treasurer Timothy Cahill, Cavanagh oversees 425 employees from the agency’s Braintree headquarters. He also manages five regional offices and the allocation of more than $4 billion in annual revenues.Cavanagh was guest speaker Wednesday at the quarterly meeting of the Lynn Business Partnership at Eastern Bank.Armed with statistics, Cavanagh explained that the Lottery has evolved dramatically since its inception in 1972, when it did $57 million in sales and returned $22 million in local aid. The first scratch ticket was introduced in 1974. Online gaming terminals arrived in 1981.By 1992, the Lottery was selling $2 and $5 tickets. Soon came Keno and the $10 ticket, and the multi-million-dollar jackpots for which the Lottery is known today.Despite its successes, competition and challenges are all around, from casinos in abutting states to the high price of gasoline, which tends to stop drivers from buying a Lottery ticket while filling up the tank. As Cavanagh put it, “With $3 a gallon at the pump, drivers are swiping their plastic to pay for the gas and not going inside the convenience store to buy a ticket. That’s tough on the economy because many of our agents are gas stations.”The average Lottery customer is just over age 50, part of a generation that shows no indication of slowing down in terms of gambling by buying tickets. But those between the ages of 21 and 35 seemingly want something different, a more social venue.”The younger customers want group activity. Maybe it’s online gambling, or poker online, or playing live poker,” said Cavanagh.E-mail and higher-quality video graphics are also part of a new promotion strategy. The Lottery offers to send a text message to your Blackberry or other electronic device, to advertise an upcoming mega-jackpot. Electronic games will feature graphics designed by professional digital game makers as research shows younger players expect better graphics.Forging partnerships with major sports teams is also part of the plan to increase sales, since customers have shown a willingness to buy tickets affiliated with their favorite teams. According to Cavanagh, discussions about such a partnership are underway with the Patriots.Should the state Legislature allow slot machines at the tracks, or the construction of casinos, Cavanagh fears the money might not be returned to the cities and towns, which was the reason the Lottery was created.”The cities and towns must be made whole,” he said, adding that local governments use the annual Lottery funds how they see fit, often for police and fire services. Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr., among those in the audience, confirmed as much. Last year, Lynn received $18.4 million in local aid from the Lottery and the money was spent on public safety.Cavanagh said the Massachusetts Lottery is among the most successful worldwide, expecting to generate $900 million in local aid during 2008.”For every dollar spent, 72 cents goes back in prizes. Twenty-one cents of every dollar goes to the cities and towns, and six cents goes to the agent as commission. That leaves two cents on a dollar to run the Lottery,” said Cavanagh.The state Department of Revenue distributes the local aid, based on a complex formula developed over the past 36 years.”We’re No. 1 in per-capita sales. Georgia is No. 2,” he said. “And only New York has more overall sales, but they have a lot more people. We’re the seventh largest lottery in the world. Spain has the biggest, but the country has 49 million people. We have six million in Massachusetts.”No matter the ranking, the sheer volume of ticket sales in the U.S. says people like to gamble. $57 billion in Lottery sales were recorded nationwide in 2007, compared to $34 billion spent on beer,