Management School, University of Liverpool, Chatham Street, Liverpool, L69 7ZH, UK.
Department of Economics, Bentley University, Waltham, MA, 02452, USA.
J Gambl Stud. 2018 Mar;34(1):39-53. doi: 10.1007/s10899-017-9689-z.
The UK Lotto game was introduced in November 1994 with a standard 6/49 format and an entry fee of £1 per ticket. After several years, revenue began to fall despite extensive publicity and a variety of inducements. By 2013, nominal weekly revenue was less than half the 1995 level. In October 2013, the operator doubled the price of a ticket to £2 and made a number of changes to the pay-out structure of smaller prizes. The intent of the changes was to reverse the long downward trend in game revenue by encouraging higher jackpots and offering more pay-out opportunities for each ticket. We use draw by draw revenue and other data to evaluate how players responded to these changes and find that, while ticket sales fell dramatically, total revenue rose following the changes. Primarily this appears to have been the consequence of increased frequency of rollovers (and therefore of more frequent high jackpot draws) rather than ticket price inelasticity. However, although there was a short-term gain in revenue, the changes did not arrest, and indeed seem to have accentuated, the long-run trend decrease in the revenue generated by the game.
英国乐透游戏于 1994 年 11 月推出，采用标准的 6/49 格式，每张票的入场费为 1 英镑。尽管进行了广泛的宣传和各种优惠措施，但几年后，收入开始下降。到 2013 年，名义周收入不到 1995 年的一半。2013 年 10 月，运营商将每张票的价格提高到 2 英镑，并对较小奖金的支付结构进行了一些调整。这些变化的目的是通过鼓励更高的头奖和为每张票提供更多的支付机会来扭转游戏收入的长期下降趋势。我们使用逐期收入和其他数据来评估玩家对这些变化的反应，发现虽然门票销售急剧下降，但总收入在变化后有所上升。这主要是由于滚动次数（因此出现更多高频头奖抽奖）的增加，而不是门票价格的无弹性。然而，尽管收入有短期增长，但这些变化并没有阻止，实际上似乎加剧了游戏收入长期下降的趋势。
