It’s a common lottery saying: You can’t win if you don’t play. In the District, when it comes to those popular “scratch” instant tickets, you can’t play. There aren’t any scratch-off tickets left. News 4’s Tom Sherwood reports on how residents and the District are missing out on millions of dollars.
D.C. residents who play the lottery are having to cross state lines for a chance to win the big bucks.
Popular scratch-off tickets are no longer on the shelves of vendors all over the city.
The District CFO announced Tuesday that the city is losing $15 million in lottery revenue because of a year-long contract dispute that prevented new scratch tickets from being printed.
That revenue loss is part of a greater $200 million potential budget debt addressed by the CFO in a new revenue letter.
Vendors around the city are also losing money.
"Our commission is 5 cents per ticket," said Dong Hun Han of King's Cafe. "We sell $1,000, [so] we lost $50 at least."
Officials say new contracts should be signed soon and scratch-off tickets will be back on the shelves in early 2015.
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For D.C. residents, the tickets can't come back soon enough.
"We gotta get 'em back," said one truck driver. "We need 'em back."
