You bet your life

SALISBURY--Can revenue-hungry Massachusetts build on the runaway success of the Marte-L Convenience store? Our state treasurer is trying hard, very hard, to do just that.

It is a modest little store (to be kind), sitting at a crossroads in this gritty border town. But do not be deceived: Marte-L is no ordinary convenience store. Think of it as the Foxwoods of the Massachusetts Keno world -- a Foxwoods without the casino, without the hotels, without the shows and shopping, just three seedy little rooms with round cocktail tables and blinking TV screens that every few minutes spit out another dozen numbers for the suckers hooked on Keno.

Last year Marte-L took in $5.4 million in Keno bets, or 42 percent more than any of the state's other 1,700 Keno outlets. And that does not include the business it does day and night in scratch tickets and other lottery products.

Keno has an unflattering image. Not fair, insists the Massachusetts Lottery Commission. Keno players are better educated and have higher incomes than the average lottery player, the lottery commission's research shows. The snow must have kept that crowd home watching PBS Wednesday on my visit to the Marte-L. My question: If Keno players are the best and the brightest, what then does that say about scratch players?

''You see a lot of old people in here," says George Burdick of Amesbury, who is 60 and retired, and comes in to play two or three times a week. ''And you wonder: Is this their Social Security check or do they have money?" The regulars talk about seeing players spend $400 or $500 on a single Keno game that lasts but a moment.

And still it is not enough. In Massachusetts, every man, woman, and child spends on average $650 a year on lottery products -- nearly four times the national average. But as we have become so dependent on the lottery to pay the bills in the city and towns, that number must keep going up. The Keno take -- which grew nearly 10 percent to $775 million last year -- is state Treasurer Tim Cahill's answer.

To increase Keno revenues, Cahill has extended Keno's hours, increased the frequency of the games from every five minutes to every four minutes, and is improving the graphics. The big leap forward: a new Keno-like game, this one with a racing theme, maybe horse racing, maybe NASCAR. Joseph C. Sullivan, the lottery's executive director, says he hopes to have the new game on line by this summer. ''We are looking at a game that offers additional excitement," says Sullivan.

Don't stop there. A couple of suggestions to keep the Massachusetts Keno economy expanding: