Over the past few weeks, some of our fans have been asking why we retired Kicker. We coaxed Dan from Product Development out of his cubicle for a few minutes and created this video response. Enjoy! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eo4hQRlI2A]

Mark your calendars! The ever-popular Red Ball promotion bounces back on Pick 3 later this week! Red Ball returns during the midday draw on Sunday, January 30, and ends with the evening drawing on Saturday, March 5.  For those of you who may not be familiar with Pick 3 or the Red Ball promotion here's a little more information. When the Red Ball is drawn, prize winnings increase up to 20% on all Pick 3 tickets. To start the promotion a total of six (6) White Balls and one (1) Red Ball is placed in a separate drawing device. When a White Ball is drawn, it is removed from the draw device, thereby guaranteeing a Red Ball is drawn at least once every seven drawings. During the 2010 promotion the Red Ball appeared 19 times!   This year there will be a total of 70 drawings involved in the Red Ball promotion. If you're checking your numbers online, the Lottery's Web site home page will display a red ball symbol next to that draw’s Pick 3 number. Also, you'll be able to check the display units at your local Ohio Lottery retailer which will display the number of remaining White balls after each draw so players and retailers know the count.

Most people experience a bit of a lull this time of year. It’s easy to sink a little after the colorful New Year’s confetti has been swept away, replaced by falling snow and our often grey, business-as-usual winter world. Not us. We’re energized. Here’s why: we launched big new games and gave away more prizes than ever this past year. We turned a lot of Ohioans into winners. Obviously, people like our games, especially the chance to win. We sold out our New Year’s Raffle for the second time ever. On the evening of 1-1-11, 3,334 people found out they were Raffle winners. Four of them won a million. Ten more won ten grand. One hundred-twenty more won fifteen hundred. The rest won $100 and $500 each. And the million dollar winners were spread out across Ohio – Mentor, Sunbury, Gallipolis and Cincinnati, moving north to south. The New Year’s Raffle is sort of the annual topper to our year. Everyone here was excited, the draw staff and communications staff happily worked on New Year’s day for the drawing… after all, we really enjoy giving away those prizes. Most importantly, though, all of us at the Lottery want to thank our fellow Ohioans for the support you’ve shown us throughout the year. Because it wasn’t just the Raffle that did well – our holiday games and our big jackpot games were very popular, too. And, as always, Ohio schools were the really big winners. In fact, we achieved a record month of December, making the largest monthly transfer ever to our Lottery Profits Education Fund. Our hats are off to all of you for helping us to have a grand 2010. We plan on celebrating even more success in 2011. Keep watch here for discussions and announcements of new games, promotions, fun and, of course, winners. Remember, winners are everywhere… the next one could be you!

Last week, Facebook announced the launch of 53 new pages supporting Amber Alerts for each state, including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This is good news for the nation and for Ohio. Maintained by the Department of Public Safety, the Ohio Amber Alert Plan uses the resources of law enforcement, the media, the Ohio Lottery, and now Facebook to notify the public when a child is missing. In 2004, the Ohio Lottery began working with the Department of Public Safety to support the Amber Alert Plan. Thus enabling the Department of Public Safety to utilize the Ohio Lottery's extensive retailer network to inform the public when a child is missing. The Ohio Lottery's Office of Security works in unison with our gaming system vendor to notify our retailers and players that a child has been abducted.   When an Amber Alert is activated, messages are sent through our terminals to every Ohio Lottery retailer in the State. This information is immediately posted to our retailer facing terminals and our customer facing displays. Messages include a description of the missing child and the suspected abductor. Jack O'Donnell, Deputy Director of Security for the Ohio Lottery said, "The Program is obviously doing some good for children placed in a bad situation." Our goal is to use all of our employees, retailers, and customers as additional eyes and ears to help find an abducted child.  Since 2004, the Ohio Lottery has posted information on more than 50 abductions. Alerts on Ohio Lottery terminals run until the Amber Alert is cancelled by the Department of Public Safety. "The Department of Public Safety does a great job." O'Donnell said, "On average an Alert runs for six hours and usually lasts for less than a day." At the Ohio Lottery, we're proud of our work with Amber Alerts and we're glad that Facebook has joined us in this effort. To learn more about Amber Alerts, please visit the Ohio Amber Alert Web site www.ohioamberplan.org. There is also a link on the Ohio Lottery home page www.ohiolottery.com.

Congrats to all our New Year's Raffle winners. If you're a big winner, I bet you already know about it. But just in case, and for the rest of you curious types out there, here's where the big winning tickets were sold. The four million-dollar winning raffle numbers and where they were sold: 325442 SPEEDWAY#1083 6537 Glenway Ave. Cincinnati 336561 MENTOR DISCOUNT TOBACCO & BEVERAGE 7411 Mentor Ave. Mentor 217096 SPEEDWAY #9241 801 2nd Ave. Gallipolis 088660 AM/PM # 620 7331 E State Route 37 Sunbury The $10,000-winning raffle numbers and where they were sold:  091198 SHADDOCK'S MARKET 4713 Central Ave. Middletown 003290 SPEEDWAY #9151 4901 E Main St. Columbus 474662 JERZEES SPORTS GRILLE 1019 E Turkeyfoot Lake Rd. Akron 020332 GIANT EAGLE #5817 7939 Day Drive Parma 235528 UNITED FOOD MART 2805 S High St. Columbus 259082 CIRCLE K #5596 2767 Albrecht Ave. Akron 065188 STATE ROAD BEVERAGE 4810 State Rd. Cleveland 294089 CONVENIENT FOOD MART #3-141 34301 Vine St. Eastlake 154967 MCQUAIDS TRANSPORTATION 307 S. State St. Girard 212921 HORIZON MART 2774 Briggs Rd. Columbus And congratulations, too, the retailers who sold the winning tickets, and also to the Lottery staff for working so hard and selling out our raffle game!

Do you have your Mega Millions ticket for Tuesday's drawing yet? The jackpot, just in case you haven't noticed - and how could you not? - is at $330 million. Depending on sales, that could increase again before the actual drawing on Tuesday night. If the jackpot rolls on Tuesday, there is a chance of wiping out the previous all-time high jackpot of $390 million for Friday's drawing. We love it when the Mega Millions or Powerball jackpot keeps rolling because that means higher sales and consequently, higher profits for us to send to the Lottery Profits Education Fund. But it will get hit eventually and when it does, we hope it stay rights here in Ohio. The State of Ohio takes 6% in taxes off the top, so that's just another way we can contribute to helping our state.  So if there is no winner in Tuesday's drawing, it means you have another shot on Friday for an even bigger jackpot! And if there is a winner Tuesday night, I for one - and I'm sure that I am joined by all my colleagues at the Ohio Lottery - hope it's one of you, our loyal players. Good luck!