IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bsu/wpaper/200705.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Plays the Numbers Games in the Middle of the Day?

Author

Listed:
  • Kathryn L. Combs

    (Department of Finance, University of St. Thomas)

  • John A. Spry

    (Department of Finance, University of St. Thomas)

Abstract

We analyze the increase in sales of daily numbers lottery games – Pick 3 and Pick 4 games – after Ohio introduced midday drawings in August 1999. Using a 36 month panel data set of Ohio lottery sales by zip code we find that midday drawings increased Pick 3 sales by 12.1% per adult and increased Pick 4 sales by 16.6% per adult. The increase in both Pick 3 and Pick 4 sales after midday drawings began was greater in zip codes with a greater percentage of households receiving public assistance and zip codes with a higher percentage of black residents. The Pick 3 Red Ball promotions during this period, which increased the payouts to winning Pick 3 tickets, were successful in raising Ohio Lottery sales and profits. Pick 3 sales per adult would have declined 15.4% and Pick 4 sales per adult would have dropped 2.4% between 1998 and 2000 without any marketing innovations by the Ohio Lottery. This trend of falling lottery sales over time was more severe in areas near casinos, many of which opened in the mid 1990s.

Suggested Citation

  • Kathryn L. Combs & John A. Spry, 2007. "Who Plays the Numbers Games in the Middle of the Day?," Working Papers 200705, Ball State University, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2007.
    • Handle: RePEc:bsu:wpaper:200705
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econfac.bsu.edu/research/workingpapers/bsuecwp200705combs.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2007
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ann Hansen, 1995. "The Tax Incidence of the Colorado State Lottery Instant Game," Public Finance Review, , vol. 23(3), pages 385-398, July.
    2. Scott, Frank & Garen, John, 1994. "Probability of purchase, amount of purchase, and the demographic incidence of the lottery tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 121-143, May.
    3. Farrell, Lisa & Walker, Ian, 1999. "The welfare effects of lotto: evidence from the UK," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 99-120, April.
    4. Donald I. Price & E. Shawn Novak, 2000. "The Income Redistribution Effects of Texas State Lottery Games," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(1), pages 82-92, January.
    5. Lisa Farrell & Edgar Morgenroth & Ian Walker, 1999. "A Time Series Analysis of U.K. Lottery Sales: Long and Short Run Price Elasticities," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(4), pages 513-526, November.
    6. Garrett, Thomas A. & Marsh, Thomas L., 2002. "The revenue impacts of cross-border lottery shopping in the presence of spatial autocorrelation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 501-519, July.
    7. Oster, Emily, 2004. "Are All Lotteries Regressive? Evidence From the Powerball," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(2), pages 179-187, June.
    8. Farrell, Lisa & Morgenroth, Edgar & Walker, Ian, 1999. "A Time Series Analysis of U.K. Lottery Sales: Long and Short Run Price Elasticities," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(4), pages 513-526, November.
    9. Kathryn Combs & Jaebeom Kim & John Spry, 2008. "The relative regressivity of seven lottery games," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 35-39.
    10. Clotfelter, Charles T & Cook, Philip J, 1990. "On the Economics of State Lotteries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 105-119, Fall.
    11. Farrell, Lisa, et al, 2000. "The Demand for Lotto: The Role of Conscious Selection," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(2), pages 228-241, April.
    12. David Forrest & O. David Gulley & Robert Simmons, 2004. "Substitution between games in the UK national lottery," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(7), pages 645-651.
    13. Charles T. Clotfelter & Philip J. Cook, 1987. "Implicit Taxation in Lottery Finance," NBER Working Papers 2246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Donald Siegel & Gary Anders, 2001. "The Impact of Indian Casinos on State Lotteries: A Case Study of Arizona," Public Finance Review, , vol. 29(2), pages 139-147, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kathryn L. Combs & John A. Spry, 2019. "The Effects Of Lotto Game Changes And Large Jackpots On Income Elasticities And Sales," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(2), pages 261-273, April.
    2. Kathryn L. Combs & Jaebeom Kim & Jim Landers & John A. Spry, 2016. "The Responsiveness of Casino Revenue to the Casino Tax Rate," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3), pages 22-44, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Humphreys, Brad & Perez, Levi, 2011. "Lottery Participants and Revenues: An International Survey of Economic Research on Lotteries," Working Papers 2011-17, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    2. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 1109, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    3. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: An Annotated Bibliography," Working Papers 1110, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    4. Garrett, Thomas A. & Coughlin, Cletus C., 2009. "Inter–Temporal Differences in the Income Elasticity of Demand for Lottery Tickets," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 62(1), pages 77-99, March.
    5. Thomas A. Garrett, 2011. "A closer look at the tax incidence of instant lottery games: an analysis by price point," Working Papers 2011-010, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    6. Thomas A. Garrett & Natalia A. Kolesnikova, 2010. "Local price variation and the tax incidence of state lotteries," Working Papers 2010-035, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    7. Brad Humphreys & Levi Perez, 2012. "Network externalities in consumer spending on lottery games: evidence from Spain," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 929-945, June.
    8. Cletus C. Coughlin & Thomas A. Garrett, 2008. "Income and lottery sales: transfers trump income from work and wealth," Working Papers 2008-004, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    9. Levi Pérez & Brad R. Humphreys, 2011. "The Income Elasticity of Lottery: New Evidence from Micro Data," Public Finance Review, , vol. 39(4), pages 551-570, July.
    10. David Paton & Donald S. Siegel & Leighton Vaughan Williams, 2002. "A Policy Response To The E--Commerce Revolution: The Case Of Betting Taxation In The UK," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(480), pages 296-314, June.
    11. Giuliano Resce & Raffaele Lagravinese & Elisa Benedetti & Sabrina Molinaro, 2019. "Income-related inequality in gambling: evidence from Italy," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1107-1131, December.
    12. Jen-Hung Wang & Larry Tzeng & Junji Tien, 2006. "Willingness to pay and the demand for lotto," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1207-1216.
    13. Richard A. Dunn & Michael A. Trousdale, 2015. "Estimating the Demand for Lottery Gambling," Public Finance Review, , vol. 43(6), pages 691-716, November.
    14. Michael Coon & Gwyneth Whieldon, 2016. "Elasticity of Demand and Optimal Prize Distribution for Instant Lottery Games," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 44(4), pages 457-469, December.
    15. Ghent, Linda S. & Grant, Alan P., 2010. "The Demand for Lottery Products and Their Distributional Consequences," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 63(2), pages 253-268, June.
    16. Ursula Hauser‐Rethaller & Ulrich König, 2002. "Parimutuel Lotteries: Gamblers' Behavior and the Demand for Tickets," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 3(2), pages 223-245, May.
    17. Cletus C. Coughlin & Thomas A. Garrett, 2009. "Income and Lottery Sales," Public Finance Review, , vol. 37(4), pages 447-469, July.
    18. Thomas A. Garrett, 2012. "The Distributional Burden of Instant Lottery Ticket Expenditures," Public Finance Review, , vol. 40(6), pages 767-788, November.
    19. Cho-Min Lin & Kung-Cheng Lin, 2007. "The demand for lottery expenditure in Taiwan: a quantile regression approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(42), pages 1-11.
    20. Chen, Shu-Heng & Chie, Bin-Tzong, 2008. "Lottery markets design, micro-structure, and macro-behavior: An ACE approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 463-480, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bsu:wpaper:200705. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tung Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debsuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.