Lottery commission to control games

The nine-member N.C. Lottery Commission to be named later this week will have considerable influence on how the state's gaming is run.

Five of the commissioners, including the chairman, will be appointed by the governor, while two each will be chosen by Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, D-Dare, and House Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg.

"(The commission) will specify types of lottery games, and the technology to be used," said Tony Caravano, spokesman for Basnight. "They'll work a lot on advertising."

Commissioners also will be responsible for determining the value and number of prizes for winning tickets, the rules for playing, how winners are chosen and what retail sales prices will be.

Once the commission is in place, it could be just a matter of months before the lottery is up and running.

"The goal would be March for the scratch-off type games," Caravano said, adding that other games hopefully would be available within a year.

The state government is estimating that the lottery will generate between $400 million and $450 million for education, he said.

Thirty-five percent of the lottery's revenue will be allocated to education, while 50 percent is set aside for prizes and 15 percent for administrative costs.

Of the 35 percent set aside for education, half will be designated for preschools and efforts to decrease K-12 class sizes. Forty percent is slated for school construction and the remaining 10 percent to college scholarships.

But some say lottery revenues might not be such a stable source of education funding.

"Its erratic," said Elaine Mejia, the project director of the budget and tax center at the N.C. Justice Center, an antipoverty organization that opposed the lottery.

"You can have years where lottery revenues go down dramatically."

If the state estimates hold true, North Carolina's lottery structure and revenue would be comparable to those of neighboring states.

Virginia's lottery, which was established in 1988, generated $423 million for education in the most recent fiscal year, said Jill Vaughan, director of communications for the Virginia Lottery Board. That amounts to 31 percent of the game's total revenue.

The Virginia board has five members, all of whom are appointed by the governor, Vaughan said. The governor also appoints the executive director.

In North Carolina, the commissioners have complete control of their staff and will select their own director.

That structure will more closely resemble South Carolina's, whose nine members have greater independence.

"North Carolina is probably going to have a similar commission, but instead of three commissioners appointed by the governor, there's going to be five," said Ernie Passailaigue, executive director of the S.C. Education Lottery Commission.

While there probably will not be any major differences between North Carolina's lottery and other states', there could be some minor ones.

"We have some stricter advertisement requirements," Mejia said.

 

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.