YOUR WINNING PACKAGE WILL BE DELIVERED TO YOU AT YOUR HOME DOORSTEP
YOUR WINNING PACKAGE WILL BE DELIVERED TO YOU AT YOUR HOME DOORSTEP
A ticket for Poker Lotto costs only $2
and the player is dealt a 5-card poker hand that is valid for an instant
prize potentially up to $5000. Players must than keep their tickets for
that evening’s main draw for $100,000. The odds of winning the grand
prize in the nightly draw are about 1 in 2.6 million, so don’t have your
sights set on taking home the big prize.
That being said, the OLGC has launched
an aggressive marketing campaign using all avenues of promotion (TV,
radio, newspaper, online, cinema and point-of-sale ads to promote this
game as they suggest that Poker Lotto is “raising the stakes of fun.”
These ads are geared around the target audience of young male poker
enthusiasts who are hesitant to play high-stakes poker. These ads are
geared towards that idea as they promote the $100,000 nightly prize as
the big catch for only a small entry fee ($2). The ads feature tough
looking men dressed up like royalty intimidating average citizens and
suggesting that the average small time poker player stand up and fight
against poker intimidation and join the big game.
Ironically, Poker Lotto has already had
many opposing political leaders and concerned gambling groups stand up
and fight against this game. NDP MPP Peter Kormos is already calling for
the government to kill off this game suggesting that Premier McGuinty
is acting like a racketeer and wanting to collect all the cash he can
from Ontario citizens.
A main argument point for these opposed
to the game say that while online gaming is limited to people 19 and
older, Poker Lotto tickets can be purchased by 18 year olds. They also
want large warning signs to accompany the tickets the same way that
cigarettes and alcohol is sold.
The NDP isn’t the only political party
questioning the benefits of this game (anticipated to bring in 60
million annually) saying that “It just strikes me that all Dalton
McGuinty is interested in is taking more money out of the pockets of
Ontario families.”
We all know that poker is a skill game
and that the thrill of playing poker is that you get to match wits with
an opponent and play your cards in any way you deem fit. This new Poker
Lotto game appears to take that element out of poker so it will be
interesting to see what becomes of it in the near future.