[Updates 6/3]
Ohio had a good 2nd week — especially if you don’t look at the numbers. The $1M winner was a 40-year-old Amazon driver with bills to pay, who hustled for his shot in response to the lottery!
Scholarship winner was a Black woman going into her senior year, and looking forward to a career in medicine or biotech. She’s looking at Case Western — where tuition is about $40K/year higher than the OSU baseline. Maybe they can adjust the program a little? Nothing wrong with $1M for the truck driver, but the scholarship $100K equivalent doesn’t go far in pre-med and med school.
She’s a COVID survivor herself, and got vaxxed as now recommended. The 2nd round of COVID-19 is often worse than the first, and the best vaccines out-perform natural immunity.
About the numbers — vaccination statistics fell off sharply week over week. Don’t take this too seriously. Reports flow to the database unevenly, in slumps and spurts, more an artifact of back-office traffic especially around a holiday weekend. At this point, we don’t have decisive evidence the program works, and we don’t have decisive evidence the program fails.
[Updates 5/26pm]
Ohio has given away its first $1M, and its first full-ride scholarship. Will response pick up in Week 2? (The real test is Week 3, when the $1M award is “old news”.)
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in NYT:
shots are up 49 percent among people ages 16 and over in Ohio, and have increased 36 percent among minorities and 65 percent among Ohioans living in rural areas. Vaccinations among 16- and 17-year-olds have increased 94 percent.
In Michigan, Gov. Whitmer says MI law prevents her from doing this … but nobody seems to know what law that is. In any case, MI could easily launch an NGO lottery as described in Jackpots Part I.
Kentucky will give away up to 225,000 $1 tickets to their nightly Cash Ball 225 drawing, max prize $225K, but only to folks who get their shots at participating Krogers and Walmarts. Any given night, there might be a big winner, and it might be a vaccinee. Bad, bad, B-A-D design — but better than nothing?
[Updates 5/26am]
US Treasury Dept. has reportedly approved spending federal relief funds on lotteries and other financial incentives.
Colorado announced its 5x$1M lottery yesterday. That makes 5 states — and one commercial airline. Expect more adopters after tonight’s big winner in Ohio, and updates on participation and impact
Colorado winners will be selected from its state vaccination database. How complete, current and accurate are these databases? Nobody knows, even in the responsible agencies.
Without deliberate survey efforts, nobody will ever have even a rough estimate. [Personal anecdote: I received an apologetic advisory from the vaccine provider where I got my 2nd jab 12 weeks ago, regarding records entered into the state vaccination database: “… we are a bit behind on that”.]
Maryland picked its first $40K winner yesterday. The notification process is a bit cumbersome (per WJLA.com):
Winners will get a notification from the Maryland Department of Health, which will send them a “$2 Million VaxCash Promotion Authorization Form.” By signing and returning the form, winners will give the Maryland Department of Health consent to provide their names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses to the Maryland Lottery so that the Lottery can contact winners to guide them through the claims process.
MD winners must provide valid ID and SSN, but may remain anonymous. Winner is from Baltimore County, not in a city of 60,000 or more.
[Updates 5/24]
No additional states joined the movement today, but Florida became the first state (so far as I know) to declare they will NEVER NEVER NOT EVER sponsor any such foolishness. We’ll see about that. And per the model laid out earlier here, no government involvement — state, local or federal — would be necessary to mount a rip-roaring vax incentive lottery in any size jurisdiction.
Speaking of which, there’s news from the private sector. (h/t JohnnyJet.com) Through its loyalty program, United Airlines will give 5 lucky (and vaccinated) winners a full year of air travel for two, any destination, any class of service. If you don’t want to sit up front with the swells in first class, you don’t have to!
Airlines are one of several business interests with an abiding interest in getting back to normal … at least new normal, or near normal, as the case may be.
And in Ohio, the Guv announced over 2.7M entrants for this week’s drawing. That’s a little better than half of the 5.2M Ohioans who have received at least one dose. What does it mean? We’ll have a better idea in a week or so.
[Updates 5/22]
Oregon took the leap yesterday, with a single $1M prize set for 6/28, five $100K scholarships, and one $10K prize in each of the state’s 36 counties.
Like Maryland, Oregon will draw from the state vaccination database. Hope it’s in better shape than most.
Point of interest: Eastern Oregon is thinly populated. The emptiest counties tend to be the Trumpiest and most devoid of medical facilities. If you are vaccinated and in one of these counties, your odds are very good (IF local authorities dutifully fed good data to the State.
An Ohio state rep — who opposed nearly every anti-COVID measure so far, and shall remain nameless here — plans to introduce emergency legislation to stop the lottery before Wednesday’s prize announcement. She has better odds of being struck by lightning.
[Updates 5/21]
The first numbers are in, and they’re encouraging. New vaccinations are up Week-over-Week (WoW) everyday so far, across multiple age groups. One million served (in less than 48 hours). 60,000 phone contacts.
This probably helped New York and Maryland jump into the game. (Both will award some minor prizes before Ohio’s big reveal on 5/26.)
Ohio should conduct a random survey Vax-a-Million entrants, for three reasons:
Evaluate their contact-and-award strategy. How many can be reached within 48 hours? How much contact info was correctly entered online — or correctly transcribed by call center personnel? How many “winners” can find their state ID and vaccine cards? How many of the stated providers are correctly identified?
Who are the entrants? How do they match overall state demographics by age, race, income, geography? When did they get their shots?
What were and are their attitudes — before and after vaccination? Before and after entering?
Ohio has taken the first leap off the cliff, which others will imitate, but we get only 5 probes of the interested population. A poll of 500 to 1,000 would give everybody much needed clues to what works, and why.
To encourage survey response, participants should be entered in a subsidiary lottery, maybe several $10,000 prizes, for better than 1-in-1,000 odds of winning. It’s our chance to buy valuable information at minimal cost.
As vaccine incentive lotteries go viral, a lot can go wrong.
Maryland will draw numbers from the state health department’s records of vaccinations in Maryland. (I didn’t think any such list existed — but it does!) How good is the list, which must rely on data submitted by vaccination providers? (Data hygiene is terrible in some states.) To what extent will this discourage vaccinations by inciting Big Brother conspiracy sentiment?
Hasty imitation can lead to BAD (Broken-As-Designed) lottery schemes.
MD will draw funding fromthe state lottery promotional budget. That may be a BAD idea on both ends.
New York rewards only new vaccinations (that’s BAD), only at a small number of state-run vaccination clinics (BAD), and rewards then with tickets to an existing state scratch-cket lottery (BAD).
Lots to learn.
[Updates 5/18]
The opt-in web portal — OhioVaxAMillion.com — went live early this morning. Some hits were diverted a “Coming soon” landing page, some reported crashes, but it works! [Most publicized links are prefixed “http”. Many users with common security settings should manually edit to “https” instead.]
Simple, clean entry form. Required fields are first name, last name, email, phone, d.o.b., address-city-ZIP, vax provider name-city-state, check boxes to accept the rules and waive vax record privacy, and an “I am not a robot” CAPTCHA.
Many prospects would fail the email requirement. Some would fail phone requirement … or would fail contact attempts and be disqualified if they “won”.
The opt-in by phone option is near-useless. Live call center under Ohio Dept of Health’s public info number.
Duplicate entries to be screened before drawings. (I’ve handled dup-elim’s on lists from 50K employees to 500K suspects to 25M mail recipients. It’s no piece of cake.)
Longer-running contests would have to provide to updates of contact info.
Entrants can get vaxxed after they enter — so long as it’s before the 11:59pm Sunday drawing deadline.
Some CAPTCHA complaints. Some confusion on lack of confirmation after submittal. Many garden-variety complaints that it’s rigged, or a waste of money.
The prize is a legit $1M! Maybe $570K in the bank after tax for most winners. Actual payment about 6 weeks after the win. No privacy shelter like payment thru trusts.
Under-18 scholarship winners get tax-sheltered in 529 savings plans, but unclear as yet if room and board portion will be taxed when spent. Does not guarantee entry to state institution of your choice, applicability to private institutions undetermined at this time (limited to max price tag of state U’s if applicable), and winners have until age 28 to benefit.
Ohio neglected to secure obvious lookalike web addresses. (Elected pol’s know all about this, don’t they?) Look out for advertising diversions, con games, identity theft, political embarrassments.
Early on, Google and others steered “vaxamillion” searches to hair-removal sites. Underground rapper Waxamillion (“No Panties on the Dance Floor”) apparently out-ranked Gov. DeWine.
Web-centric sign-up will miss a lot of prime target population, but it’s a commendable start. We’ll know soon enough how good a start it is.
Watch, and learn.
[Heavily updated 5/17/21] Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced a million dollar vaccination incentive lottery on 5/12. State agencies threw us a big-league curve today — but they may have put it over the plate.
The lottery is is a true shot in the dark, born of desperation, concocted on the fly. It might work. It might fizzle. It might even backfire. Either way, true to the Biden-era zeitgeist, it’s a big effin’ deal.
As announced 5/123, registered voters would be entered automatically, with an online portal for others to opt in.
As of 5/17, it’s all opt-in, via website or phone service. Voter registration database is no longer involved.
Here’s what we know:
Must enter to win. It is strictly opt-in.
Must be an Ohio resident, per same standards as for voter reg or driver’s license.
Must have received at least one COVID shot.
Must proffer evidence in the form of vaccination card details.
Each week, one qualified entrant age 18 or older wins $1M.
Each week, one qualified entrant age 12-17 gets a full-ride college scholarship.
Drawings will be conducted weekly for a total of 5 drawings. First winner announced 5/26.
Online portal slated to open 5/18. Detailed rules slated for release 5/18.
State Dept of Health sponsors the game, Lottery Commission operates the drawings.
Funding comes from Ohio’s share of federal COVID relief.
Entries close at end-of-day each Sunday for the week’s drawing and Wednesday announcement.
Authorities have about 48 hours to contact the selected entrant and confirm their claim to have been vaccinated. Several alternates are drawn in case the first selectee is disqualified.
Vaccine card is accepted as primary proof of vaccination.
Only US citizens are eligible. Incarcerated felons are excluded. Employees and family members of certain state agencies are excluded.
Award is a lump sum. No 30 year pay-outs.
What we don’t know yet:
What anti-counterfeiting measures are employed? What records are verified?
What about lost vaccine cards? Residents without state ID? Residents without current ID? (Under pandemic precautions, millions delayed renewing or updating personal documentation .)
Undocumented immigrants? Undocumented natural-born Americans, of which there are millions? Homeless, who may lack proof of residence?
Will the website be ready and robust? How well will it screen duplicate or /multiple entries? Pranksters? Bots? Out-of-staters with old or fake OH ID?
Is the prize an honest $1M? Or a $600K “cash value” ($400K after tax) typical of lottery “$1M” prizes?
Context:
The state reports 42% of residents (including children for which no FDA-approved) vaccine exists) have taken at least one shot. Gov. DeWine indicates the adult level has passed 50%.
New vaccinations have slowed drastically. Last week Ohio had nearly half a million doses in the freezer waiting for customers.
Like many state governors, DeWine has been caught between the rock of COVID case numbers and the hard place of ordering restrictions on personal liberties.
Issues and implications:
This could be a breakthrough for vaccination incentive lotteries — and potentially other incentive lottery applications.
A common objection to incentive lotteries is “you can’t know if it will work … nobody has the data”. This may give us real data.
Will this raise interest? Will it move the herd? Can we detect paradoxical effects? (“If you’re paying me to do this, it must be something you want and I don’t want, right?”) How will we know?
Let’s hope Ohio will be polled extensively and intensively through the next few weeks. Some “Golden Ticket” incentive schemes generate streams of statistics. This design does not, but the opt-in demographics could be of interest to researchers if made available in privacy-guarded form.
How much promotional effort will it need? Is the announcement itself — plus word of mouth and coverage of drawings and happy winners — enough promo?
Will the conspiracy industry respond with new propaganda of its own? Or will they be swamped by the measure’s popular appeal?
Will the identity theft industry beat Ohio to the punch with their own versions of the portal?
Ditching the voter rolls is an improvement. It avoids the embarrassment of drawing several non-vaccinated “winners” in a row. It’s probably more egalitarian from a demographic standpoint. However …
A note of caution: Reliance on an opt-in website tilts the gaming table in favor of affluent, educated, more settled, better-vaccinated families … and against Ohio’s share of an estimated 30M Americans who fully intend to get vaccinated but haven’t got it done yet.1 Many of these laggards won’t have current ID, internet access, digital skills, or free time and patience for IVR, and they’re less likely to have their vaccine cards at hand.
Many homeless, and all undocumented residents are completely out of luck — even many natural-born but undocumented US citizens.
This might rapidly inspire similar schemes in other jurisdictions. It’s drastically cheaper than almost every other COVID-related item in state budgets … and it just might work. [If it does work, can we capture the data that provse it?]
Complaints about this initiative are abundant, but not terribly interesting. We’ll survey them in Part III of Jackpots for Vacc Shots.
More details are expected 5/14, along with a live website and (presumably IVR) phone system, and we’ll have updates.