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// PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL // May/June 2016
PUBLIC GAMING
INTERVIEWS
Rebecca
HARGROVE
President and Chief Executive Officer,
Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation
Senior Vice President, World Lottery Association (WLA)
PGRI Introduction:
Rebecca Paul Hargrove has served in leadership roles in the lottery industry for over 30 years, including as
Chief Executive of four U.S. lotteries and as a consultant to lotteries across the globe. In three of those four states she led the
start-up and remains one of the most respected, experienced leaders in the field.
The founding Board of Directors of the newly-created Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation recruited Rebecca to start a
lottery here nearly 13 years ago, which she did three weeks ahead of schedule, netting an additional $30 million for education
than was anticipated. The Tennessee Lottery has seen growth every year since inception, thought to be a U.S. record.
Rebecca’s resume includes a long list of lottery industry, business and civic accomplishments, honors and awards. She is the
current Senior Vice President of the World Lottery Association, and has served as President of the North American Association
of State and Provincial Lotteries, President of the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), President of Powerball, and President
of the international industry organization A.I.L.E. She was one of the first inductees to the Lottery Industry Hall of Fame, and
was named one of The Tennessean newspaper’s Tennesseans of the Year. Throughout her career, Rebecca has served on a
variety of boards and continues to support many causes.
Rebecca holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Education from Butler University and is a native of Indiana who
now calls Tennessee home.
Paul Jason, PGRI:
I do not understand
why you would not cap the Powerball jack-
pot. As soon as the jackpot exceeds the previ-
ous record, cap it and apply the revenues from
the following rolls to fund lower-tier prizes,
redistributing the prize money to create more
winners, or to some other purpose that benefits
the players. Granted, the big jackpot roll-ups
are reduced to accomplish that, but wouldn’t
the player see that as a good trade-off?
Rebecca Hargrove:
It benefits ev-
eryone except the players who win the
big jackpot. This would seem to be a
good trade-off. However, people who
play Powerball are typically playing to
win the big jackpot. That’s why they
play the game; to create the possibility
of winning the big jackpot. They are not
thinking about the odds of winning a
lower-tier prize. So if you cap the jack-
pot and redistribute the revenues from
the subsequent rolls to fund lower-tier
prizes, the players who are playing to
win the big jackpot might feel like you
are taking their money. The calculus be-
hind that may not seem logical to players
who want better odds to win a smaller
jackpot, but there are many other lottery
game options that deliver play-styles and
value-propositions that accomplish that.
If you are hoping to win the big jackpot,
you don’t want anyone to change your
ability to win as much as you can.
To what extent will the $1.58 billion jack-
pot raise the tipping point at which media
and consumers get super excited and jackpot
fever takes hold? That tipping point raises
Regional Versus Nationwide Games and Optimizing
the Long-Term Performance of Powerball