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Some Tri-County Area merchants selling scratch-off and Powerball lottery tickets gave mixed reviews Thursday on their experiences.
Scratch-off sales started March 30, while local residents began playing Powerball May 30.
Wendy Epps, manager of Rosemart #202 on Dabney Drive in Henderson, was at the store last March when State Sen. Doug Berger and State Rep. Michael Wray came by and bought some of the first lottery tickets sold across the counter.
“We continue to make more money on scratch-offs than on Powerball, except on Wednesday and Saturday evenings when the Powerball numbers are due to come out,” Epps said Thursday between waiting on customers.
“They are killing us up here” on those two nights, she added. “Everybody is trying to get tickets at the last minute.”
Asked if Powerball sales have met her expectations, Epps replied: “I don't think so. I thought it would all be ‘boom-boom-boom.' She described the store's scratch-off business as “excellent.”
Overall, sales have been pretty good, according to Epps. “They keep you busy. It rolls.”
Everybody wants to know when they will get to purchase Pick 3 and Pick 4 lottery tickets, Epps said. “We don't know when they will come out.”
The people buying scratch-off tickets are the same ones playing Powerball, according to Epps.
Another employee, who didn't want to give her name, said a lot of elderly people are buying Powerball chances.
Epps' facial expression didn't imply humor when she said, “We have a lot of people who stop in here from Virginia. They tell me they want to pay back a lot of North Carolina money spent in Virginia.”
Asked about Powerball playoffs, Epps said: “I paid out $100 to one guy. A lot of people have won straight Powerball tickets worth $3 each.”
When scratch-off games began in North Carolina, a total of four types were available, Epps said. Now there are 15, she added. “They keep coming out with different ones.”
Mike Faulkner, owner of Kittrell Grocery, estimated lottery ticket sales jumped 30 to 40 percent at his business on U. S. 1 when Powerball started in late May.
That was also when a lot of elderly folks, employees in different types of uniforms and “people wearing suits and ties” began showing up to buy chances, according to Faulkner.
“This morning, I saw an elderly fella who wouldn't have spent his $5 on nothing else,” Faulkner said. “He was strictly a ‘75-cents-for-a-cup-of-coffee-every-day-man' until Powerball started. Now he plays twice a week.”
About a dozen Powerball players have won $50 while “a couple of others” have gotten $100 payoffs at Kittrell Grocery, according to Faulkner.
He said his store gets 7 cents from each dollar customers spend on tickets, no matter what the game.
Asked whether lottery sales have met his expectations, he replied: “I'm probably going to make what I thought I was going to make in a year's time.”
Knowing what he knows now, would he do it all over again? Faulkner said he would, as long as his competition did, too.
Over at Bearpond Fresh Market, owner Billy Stanton said he didn't have any expectations when the lottery started. His busiest days selling tickets have been on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when the winning numbers are drawn.
“Commissions from the sales of tickets for Powerball and scratch-off don't meet the expenses that are involved,” Stanton said. “To hire an employee to do that (sell chances), you can't do it unless you are willing to lose money.”
But offering lottery tickets is necessary if you want to remain competitive with other stores, according to Stanton.
The bottom line, though, is: “I don't make a profit on it.”
Sales of both Powerball and scratch-off chances are “pretty steady” at Lowes Foods No. 172 on East Macon Street in Warrenton, according to Co-Manager Dale Webb.
“Most of the tickets customers cash in are for small amounts of money,” he said.
Several of the store owners who were interviewed didn't think lottery sales had much impact, one way or another, on their merchandise and fuel profits.
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