The Ranger Online

Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: Features

Gerald Busald [Click to enlarge]

Honesty is the best policy. It's a lesson that math Professor Gerald Busald has been teaching for a long time - not a lesson he had to teach his students, but a lesson that his students have helped him teach to the Texas Lottery Commission.

Since 1997, Busald and his students have been active in provoking change, not only in the way the lottery is advertised, but the attitude in which the commission approaches consumer knowledge.

The most recent changes, a list of eight suggestions from Busald and his students, were brought to the commission's attention June 28. The commission responded at an Oct. 18 meeting and discussed it again Jan. 30.

"I wanted to bring the best ideas of what's done around the country to Texas, as far as the most disclosure, the most honest practices," he said.

The first was a change to the language used on lottery billboards. There are 124 billboards statewide that read "Estimated Jackpot" but by June 1, the billboards will be fitted with the words "Estimated Annuitized Jackpot."

"Officially, 'annuitized' is not a word. It's a lottery word," Busald said. "It conveys the idea that the prize is paid over time."

The word is already used on billboards for the state lottery in Virginia. The change was agreed upon at a cost to the state of only $18,500.

The second suggestion was that the back of the online roll stock include the odds of winning the top prize, rather than just the overall odds of winning anything at all. The text also will be adjusted from 4.6-point type to 6-point type, increasing its readability and decreasing its wordiness.

The third suggestion was implemented Dec. 14, and the estimated cash value option for jackpot games is now shown beneath the current estimated annuitized jackpot on the lottery commission Web site, www.txlottery.org.

At the Jan. 30 commission meeting, lottery operations Director Michael Anger provided commissioners with a graphic depicting the cash value option in a smaller-type font. Commission Chair James A. Cox requested that the type size be equal to that of the estimated annuitized jackpot. The change was made soon after the meeting.

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