Maryland Lottery

Maryland Lottery officials announced yesterday that the evening Pick 4 number, 4444, drawn New Year's Eve broke the bank, rewarding players with more than $4.4 million.Lottery Director Buddy Roogow said Pick 4 players wagered more than $443,000 on the number and that the payout for New Year's Eve was one of the largest in the lottery's history.Roogow said that for all its games combined, the Maryland Lottery paid out nearly $250 million in 1998.Pub Date: 1/05/99

The air inside the Flite Three Television Studio in Baltimore was thick with excitement as 50 potential millionaires, their eyes filled with dollar signs, awaited their curtain call.They were there to vie for $2.5 million in cash and other prizes in a new game show, "Scream for Millions," sponsored by the Maryland Lottery and Six Flags America.The show -- which will air tonight on Baltimore's WJZ-TV and several other Maryland stations -- came as a chance for redemption for the contestants, all of whom were past losers in the Maryland Lottery.

WHAT in the world is happening to Maryland's state lottery? It has become yesterday's news.Gone are the days when Marylanders flocked to purchase daily tickets. "You've Gotta Play to Win!" -- a lottery slogan of the 1970s -- struck a chord with this state's citizens. News stories about lucky winners appeared with amazing frequency.It has been 26 years since the legal lottery returned to Maryland. The game no longer is a novelty. It has reached middle age and is showing signs of wear and tear.

The employees at BJ's Wholesale Club in Pasadena are dying to know: Who went into the giant discount store Saturday afternoon and walked out holding the winning Big Game lottery ticket worth $60 million -- the richest jackpot in Maryland history?The elusive ticketholder, who beat odds of 1 in 76 million to win the multistate lottery game, had not come forward by yesterday evening, according to Maryland lottery officials. The $60 million prize crushes the record for the state's top lottery win, a nearly $21.1 million Lotto prize in 1991.

ClarificationLast week's column on the merits of replacing rather than upgrading Pimlico Race Course used a figure of $60 million. That is the overall cost of a plan that would also improve Laurel Park, the off-track-betting system and their marketing. Refurbishing Pimlico is projected to cost $18.2 million.Right now, Pimlico Race Course needs to be saved from itself, or what president Joe De Francis wants to do to it. Maybe the governor, Parris N. Glendening, can introduce some basic common sense and point out a more plausible course of action.

Maryland Lottery officials announced yesterday that the evening Pick 4 number, 4444, drawn New Year's Eve broke the bank, rewarding players with more than $4.4 million.Lottery Director Buddy Roogow said Pick 4 players wagered more than $443,000 on the number and that the payout for New Year's Eve was one of the largest in the lottery's history.Roogow said that for all its games combined, the Maryland Lottery paid out nearly $250 million in 1998.Pub Date: 1/05/99

The Maryland lottery has just wrapped up its best year -- thanks to a boom in gambling on games such as keno and Lotto, officials said yesterday.The state took in slightly more than $400 million in profits from the lottery in the fiscal year that ended June 30, a 2 percent increase in revenue from last year and a record.In all, the state sold almost $1.1 billion in lottery tickets, a jump of 2.8 percent over the preceding year, the State Lottery Agency reported.Maryland's success in the lottery comes as many states have seen their proceeds drop in recent years -- due in part to an upsurge in the availability of other forms of gambling, such as casinos and slot machines.

Redistricting won't cure school crowdingI would like to provide additional information for your editorial from Jan. 1, "The year ahead in Maryland."Comprehensive redistricting will not solve the problem of overcrowding in Anne Arundel County. The high schools in Anne Arundel County and the state in general are feeling the effects of the "baby boom echo."Your newspaper reported on this Aug. 2: , "Md. public high schools expected to enroll 263,000 students in 2007; Student boom strains schools in Md., nation."

Stella Virginia Klebe, a Baltimore native who belonged to more than 100 Elvis Presley fan clubs, died Wednesday of Alzheimer's disease in New Oxford, Pa. She was 77.Ms. Klebe attended Westport High School in Baltimore and joined the Army in 1944, serving as a cook in Des Moines, Iowa. She was discharged in December 1945 and worked at the American Hammer Co. in Baltimore as a piston ring inspector, and then at Koppers Co., also as an inspector. She retired in 1977.But it was the "bags and bags" of letters that poured in from fellow Elvis fans that kept her busiest, said longtime friend Betty Lou Watts of Severna Park.

Borrowing an idea from Madison Avenue, the Maryland Lottery has struck a cooperative marketing agreement with Crown Central Petroleum Corp.It's the lottery's first joint business promotion, state officials said.In an arrangement that will run for the rest of this month, people who buy a "Big Game" lottery ticket of $5 or more at participating locations will get a coupon for a free Baltimore Orioles 40th Anniversary videotape when they buy eight gallons or more of Crown premium gas.In addition, the Crown customers get a coupon for $1 off their next Big Game lottery ticket.

Maryland Lottery officials are gambling that Ravens football fever will bolster ticket sales when a new scratch-off is unveiled later this year, marking one of the first partnerships of its kind in the country. Under the $810,000 deal with the Ravens approved by the state Board of Public Works on Wednesday, the team's logo will appear on $5 purple scratch-off tickets starting during the preseason in August. Prizes include lifetime season tickets to Ravens games, up to $1 million in cash and game-day suites.

The Ravens are huddling with Maryland Lottery officials over placing the team's logo for the first time on scratch-off tickets. "We are in discussions," Ravens' spokesman Chad Steele confirmed Friday, just 48 hours after the National Football League decided to allow clubs to strike licensing deals with state-sponsored lotteries. Maryland Lottery officials declined comment Friday. Thursday, the New England Patriots reached an agreement with the Massachusetts State Lottery to put their logo on instant tickets next season.

1 A wealthy entrepreneur who denounced slot machines as the "cancer" of the horse-racing industry now wants to build a slots casino in Anne Arundel County - as a cure for Maryland's ailing racetracks. Halsey Minor said in an interview yesterday that he still objects to installing slots at tracks and instead wants to develop a standalone casino with the proceeds funding his self-styled crusade to save horse racing. His bid for a slots license would directly compete with an anticipated proposal from Magna Entertainment Corp.

At its first meeting last night, the commission that will award licenses to run slot-machine casinos in Maryland approved a 150-page request for bids that is expected to be sent to potential operators today. The bureaucratic step ushers in what state officials hope is a bidding war for the licenses that could bring more than $600 million to state coffers to ease future budget shortfalls, and more than $400 million to casino operators when the program is fully implemented in five years.

An extraordinary lucky streak for Maryland lottery players has meant more bad news for a state budget already hobbled by the recession. Maryland lottery revenue has fallen $27 million below projections since July, largely because a high number of lottery players won big on the Pick 3 and Pick 4 games. Defying the odds, a series of the same digit was drawn eight times for the game in which players choose three numbers, and once in which they choose four. In those games, players often pick a same-number series out of superstition or for other reasons, officials said.

Supporters and opponents of Maryland slot machines are arguing over the wording of a slots-approval measure on November's ballot. The language goes on and on about education but says nothing about horse racing. Here's how an honest version would read: This measure authorizes the state to issue up to five video lottery licenses for the purpose of raising revenue for education, bailing out an industry that can't make it on its own and saving Annapolis pols from the hard work of governing.

Andrea D. Johnson, a former associate state attorney general and principal counsel to the Maryland Lottery, died Aug. 1 of breast cancer at Northwest Hospital Center. The longtime Randallstown resident was 55. Andrea Dale Jackson was born and raised in Bridgeton, N.J. She was a 1971 graduate of Bridgeton High School and earned a bachelor's degree in history from what is now Morgan State University in 1975. After graduating from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1980, she interned at the Baltimore City Legal Aid Bureau and then went to work as in-house counsel for Peterson, Howell and Heather, the former Baltimore fleet leasing firm.

Someone in New Jersey won $390 million in the Mega Millions lottery this month and has yet to claim their winnings. Every day they have waited has cost them a lot of money - at least $140,625 a week in lost interest on the payoff. That's probably not a major concern, given the size of the prize. But a larger tragedy may be possible. The winner may have lost or forgotten their winning ticket. It's not an uncommon occurrence. State lotteries across the nation are holding or diverting millions of dollars worth of prizes won by unlucky players who fail to claim their winnings.

With a huge cash crunch on the horizon and soaring demands for school construction, new roads and mass transit, some Maryland lawmakers are talking up the idea of selling one of the state's most valuable assets: the lottery. The idea has grown popular since the governor of Illinois proposed doing the same thing last year. The governors of Indiana and Texas have suggested similar moves, and discussions of the idea are taking place in Michigan and New Jersey. Maryland faces a gap of $1.3 billion between expected revenues and spending in the fiscal year beginning July 1, with more cash problems predicted for the years ahead.

The countdown took a little longer than expected. After a delay of one day, the Maryland Lottery held its drawing last night for Countdown to Millions new game featuring the Maryland Lottery's best odds ever at winning $1 million - and at $20 apiece, its most expensive tickets ever. The game, which the lottery marketed as a 1-in-105,000 chance to win $1 million and a 1-in-517 chance to win at least $500, was originally scheduled for a New Year's Eve drawing. But with sales short of the lottery's 420,000- ticket goal, the drawing was pushed back 24 hours.