You might think leading the Kansas Lottery would be an entertaining job.. but Director Ed Van Petten is not only dealing with negotiating contracts for those four state-owned destination casinos in the works.  Now he's got a problem of sluggish ticket sales to deal with, too.  Petten announced last week the Kansas Lottery is experiencing about a 5% drop in lottery sales.. costing the Lotto lovers $2 million.  When your state lottery sells $20 million of tickets in a month, that's a pretty sizable drop!

Take some advice from Sam Walton at WalMart: stack 'em  high, let 'em fly.. The Lottery needs to offer Kansans more chances to win some gas money (maybe with a particular game targeted for that very purpose..)  Have more scratch offs with $5, $10 and $20 prizes to keep us coming back.  And is there any way they could legally offer some better odds on Kansas Cash or Hot Lotto?  If people believe they have a better chance of winning, the Lottery Commission will have a better chance of having us play their games.

Games that are big business. 

Ed, if you're out there, I hope you're listening.   Ralph

(p.s.  Ralph won $10 on a scratch off ticket Thursday morning.)