Games for Money

Boston Herald Reports (3/29/05):

Hold’Em Poker, meet the Massachusetts State Lottery.

State lottery officials today will unveil a new scratch ticket - one that aims to capitalize on the Texas-sized-and-styled poker craze sweeping the country.

This $10 scratch ticket comes with a big twist - a Hold’Em Poker tournament in which hundreds of players will take to the felt for the chance to win prizes ranging up to $10 million.

While other states have rolled out poker-themed scratch tickets, the Bay State is the first to offer a full-fledged card tournament as well.

Lottery officials will detail plans for the new game - and the card contest - at a press conference today at the Sports Depot in Allston. Howard Lederer, a champion poker player and New Hampshire native who is best known as the “professor of poker,” will offer his blessing of the new lottery ticket and contest.

The crown jewel of the new Hold’Em Poker game will be a $10 million prize - the largest instant ticket jackpot ever offered in the country, lottery officials said.

“When this game is finished, one lucky player will win $10 million, and make lottery history,” said Joseph Sullivan, the state’s lottery chief.

The move comes as lotteries across the country are forced to spruce up their offerings, said Clyde Barrow, a gaming industry expert and public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

“One of the things lotteries have (found) all over the country is that games do go stale,” Barrow said. “You have to start churning games,” he said.

The new game will have two tracks.

Ticket buyers can win a range of prizes - from $1,000 to $4 million - by scratching off the poker hands on their card in hopes of beating the house (lottery) hand.

But the grand, $10 million prize is reserved for players who take part in a giant Hold’Em Poker tournament to be overseen by the lottery.

All told, more than 68,000 players who scratch a box on the bottom of the ticket and get a WPT symbol, qualifying them to collect a World Poker Tour merchandise package. Of those, 560 will be selected to take part in the grand prize tournament.

Full article here.

Preston Danforth wrote this on March 28th, 2005 and filed it under Blackjack, Card Counting, Gambling, Las Vegas Gambling, Online Gambling, Texas Holdem Poker, World Series of Poker |