Lottery unveils Red Sox scratch tickets
The Massachusetts State Lottery today said it will introduce a Red Sox scratch-ticket game, in which players can win everything from season tickets for life to cruise packages to jerseys used in games, as well as more traditional cash prizes of up to $1 million.
Fans will be able to pay $5 for the new Red Sox Instant Ticket beginning on April 11, the date of the Sox's home opener. The Red Sox are the first team in Major League Baseball to unveil a lottery game, but several others -- including the New York Yankees and Mets, which are calling their joint game the Subway Series -- have plans to follow suit. The games come after Major League Baseball struck an agreement with a subsidiary of Scientific Games Corp. of New York to let team logos be used on instant tickets. In the next few years, dozens of teams are expected to unveil lottery games, executives said.
The National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League have struck similar agreements with Scientific Games.
The Sox will not get royalties from lottery ticket sales, but Scientific Games will pay the team an undisclosed lump sum for supplying the prizes. The Sox also are planning to sell lottery tickets at Fenway Park this year.
"I'm expecting it to be a runaway success," state Treasurer Timothy Cahill said of the game.
He said the state will print 40 million tickets to start, and that game will bring in more than $30 million if all goes well.
(Sasha Talcott, Globe Staff)
