{"id":3024,"date":"2011-11-07T15:24:58","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T20:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=3024"},"modified":"2011-11-08T09:44:18","modified_gmt":"2011-11-08T14:44:18","slug":"losing-the-lotto-waiting-for-massachusetts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2011\/11\/07\/losing-the-lotto-waiting-for-massachusetts\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing The Lotto: Waiting For Massachusetts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Camelia TWU \/ Flickr<\/p>

There's just a mother hen on the eggs over here!<\/p><\/div>\n

Mondays are interesting days here at StateImpact.\u00a0 It’s when we plan out what we’re going to cover over the course of the week, and how.\u00a0 It’s when we look at where we’ve been in the past week, and where we’re going.\u00a0 And sometimes, it’s the day that critical information is brought to our–or rather, in this case, my–<\/em>attention.<\/p>\n

“You’re like a mother hen on the eggs over here!”<\/p>\n

That’s what Rachel Gotbaum, my StateImpact partner-in-crime, told me today.\u00a0 She’s convinced that I need to share with you a bit more often how exactly I get from Point A (observation) to Point B (question) to Point C (data) and finally…to Point D (story).<\/p>\n

Unlike my partner, I’m not from the Northeast originally, let alone one of its major cities.\u00a0 But I’ve been in the area long enough to know that when a dyed-in-the-wool East Coast urbanite like Rachel adds “over here!” to the end of a sentence…it’s Serious Business.\u00a0 And I need to pay attention.<\/p>\n

So in that spirit, I’m going to start sharing with you the process of putting a story together, as it comes together.<\/p>\n

Let’s start with the lotto series.\u00a0 I posted a couple of seriously nifty tables a couple of weeks ago (you can see them here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Then, I stopped.<\/p>\n

Then, last Friday afternoon, I called “Game On!” for the series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s what happened:\u00a0 I was waiting on some data from Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

If you ask anyone even tangentially involved with gaming in New Hampshire, they’ll probably confirm one solid observation:\u00a0 When it comes to the lottery, the Bay State’s been cleaning our collective clock for years.\u00a0 And they’re stealing Granite State gamblers.<\/p>\n

At this juncture, it makes sense to try to determine the veracity of these broad-based assumptions, and, if they’re true, why.\u00a0 After all, New Hampshire has fewer people, so it’s not like counting up ticket sales is really a valid way to determine if Massachusetts is a serious threat to our lottery sales.\u00a0 And the way you get this info is by getting your hands on some good ‘ol fashioned raw data.\u00a0 Specifically, what you need are spreadsheets, something along the lines of what you’d use in Excel.\u00a0 Once I have spreadsheet info from New Hampshire and Massachusetts, I can start to see some patterns, then enlist some help from data people, run some cool calculations, and present you with charts that demonstrate how much of a threat to New Hampshire lotto revenues Massachusetts actually is.<\/p>\n

I’ve been in touch with the Massachusetts Lottery Commission<\/a> several times.<\/p>\n

And following my first call, they were very good about providing me with what they call a “Comparative Statement of Operations.”<\/p>\n

It was a PDF file.\u00a0 There’s a copy below:<\/p>\n