Lottery May Add Prize Drawing for the Home-Viewing Audience

State lottery officials may try to boost ratings for the weekly televised jackpot awards show by involving the home-viewing audience in some special prize drawing, Lottery Director Mark Michalko has said.

“There’s not a great deal of incentive for people to watch the show in its present format,” Michalko conceded to reporters after a state Lottery Commission meeting Friday.

“We’re looking at ways of getting more active interest. . . . So far, the ratings have been good, but we knew all along that we would have to modify the show (as viewers tire of watching other people rake in the money).”

A special network of ABC-affiliated stations televises the show, “The Big Spin,” on Monday nights. In it, selected winners of $100 in the lottery’s instant game spin a large wheel and win prizes ranging from $10,000 to $2 million. The home viewer has no chance to win anything.

Show ratings in Los Angeles and San Francisco have been unspectacular. In its debut “The Big Spin” captured 26% of the viewing audience in Los Angeles, for example, and that number dropped to 17% in the second week.

In the lottery’s new game, which began this week, the top grand prize will increase to $3 million. Once again, plans call for the home viewer to win nothing.

Michalko said potential sponsors, among them Suzuki, manufacturer of motorcycles and other vehicles, have expressed interest in providing some of their products as viewer prizes in exchange for promotional consideration.

He said one proposal calls for a special drawing for such prizes from the control numbers on losing lottery tickets, tickets that home viewers could save after learning that they were neither instant winners nor, therefore, candidates for a grand prize.

Ticket purchasers would be warned to make sure their tickets are not instant winners before scratching off the film covering the control number. The film covering the control number, which is part of the lottery system’s verification security system, bears a warning that the ticket will be void as an instant winner if the film is removed.