(Pierre) – The cost to call the Lottery’s 900 phone number for lotto
drawing results will soon increase an average of 35 cents per call.
Calls to the Lottery’s 1-900-378-8999 hotline for the latest winning
numbers and next jackpots currently cost 37 cents per minute. Starting
Wednesday, June 6, the cost will increase to 99 cents for the first minute and
10 cents for each additional minute.
Executive director Norman Lingle said the change was necessary to keep
the service available to players. "We didn’t have much choice. The company
that provides the service told us that their phone line provider now
required 900 lines to charge at least 99 cents in order to maintain the
line," he said.
The Lottery contracts with ICN/Champion Communications in Florida to
provide the winning numbers hotline. The service is funded solely by calls
to the number and the Lottery receives no revenue from the service.
The average call to the winning numbers line lasts two minutes and costs
74 cents. After June 6, the charge for a two minute call will be $1.09.
Callers are always informed of the charges at the beginning of the call and
can hang up before any charges are incurred.
The hotline logged 24,896 calls during last state fiscal year 2006 (July
1, 2005 – June 30, 2006). Use of the hotline has steadily declined each year
from more than 30,000 calls in FY04 and is projected to decline again in
FY07.
Winning numbers and jackpot amounts are available for free on the
Lottery’s website,
Even with declining calls and other free options to get winning numbers,
Lingle said the Lottery decided to raise the price rather than end the
service. "We still have a number of players who call the hotline for
results. We wanted to let them choose whether they’d continue to use it," he
said.
