‘And the Winning Numbers Are...’

Members toil daily behind the lottery scenes to help the hopeful change their lives.

By Jimmie Turner

Fred Reed, a sales representative for the Illinois Lottery, says he felt like Santa Claus when a player from his territory won $60 million in the Big Game. “I don’t know how many different people, as the day wore on, approached me about the big winner,” he says. “Everybody was so happy. That’s a very rewarding experience.”

Next time you watch a televised live lottery drawing, an AFSCME member may be standing offstage. True, members like Reed, John Naioti in Schenectady, N.Y., and Samuel Erby in Cleveland, seldom actually meet the winner of a huge jackpot. Instead, they are the quiet heroes who work — out of sight — to ensure the smooth functioning and integrity of lottery operations. Sometimes the job isn’t easy, and it comes with risks. But unless it’s done promptly and correctly, the winning ticket may never get drawn and delivered.

JACKPOT. State lottery workers have long been on the list of occupations that include AFSCME members. Sales representatives, studio aides, customer service assistants, telemarketers, communications coordinators and more are hard at work in about 10 states. The ultimate success of their combined efforts: to turn people’s dreams of riches into a cold-cash reality.

Lottery games are generally the same in each state. Instant tickets (scratch offs) and games that let players choose three or four numbers on a ticket are played daily; games with larger jackpots and five or six numbers are normally played two days a week. In addition, some states offer Powerball or Big Game. Nationwide, players compete against each other in two drawings — held Wednesday and Saturday — for what can be record-breaking jackpots. In a Powerball drawing held March 4, three winning tickets were sold in Kansas, Minnesota and Missouri for a $150 million jackpot. The numbers were: 3, 6, 8, 43, 48, and the Powerball was 1.

In a majority of states, profits from lottery sales are earmarked for schools. In fiscal 1999, for example, schools in New York, Ohio and Illinois received $1.4 billion, $696 million and $540 million, respectively.

LIGHTS, CAMERA,... Before a New York Lottery Television personality starts calling out numbers for viewers, John Naioti has the unnerving task of making sure the equipment is running smoothly — unnerving because a slip-up will botch the show and blotch the lottery’s image. He also must count numbered balls up to 51 before placing them in the machine. When the drawing is complete, he hustles off to fax the results to the media. “My job is definitely a behind-the-scenes thing,” says Naioti, a lottery studio aide who belongs to the Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME Local 1000. It’s nonetheless vital to the success of the high-profile lotteries and the glitzy TV shows that reveal the results to the public.

Eleven stations scattered across New York state air the drawings in the evenings around 7:45 (Win 4 and Numbers games) and 11:15 (Lotto and Take 5 games).

Naioti says the most exciting part of his job is realizing that thousands of viewers are watching the live broadcasts. “My role is small within the drawing itself, but when you’re the person putting the results out to the world, it’s a good feeling that really gives you a sense of pride.

“It’s also very gratifying knowing that we can change somebody’s life for the better.”

“ALWAYS OVERLOOKED.” Samuel Erby works at what he calls the hub of the Ohio Lottery: the customer service department. “We’re the clearinghouse for calls to our 1-800 line,” the customer service representative explains. “A majority of the calls come through here, and we have to consistently give out information correctly and accu-rately. We have to be knowledgeable about every facet of the lottery — more so than most other departments within the agency.”

A member of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA)/ AFSCME Local 11, Erby works for the state lottery’s central office in Cleveland. He says customer service reps are “the first to know about a problem in the lottery. But we’re the last department to be acknowledged for the finding and informing our agents that a problem exists. That’s why we say we’re always overlooked.”

Someone was listening. With the support of OCSEA, as well as complaints filed by customer service reps from across the state, the Department of Administrative Services, which oversees the Ohio Lottery, reclassified the customer-service-rep jobs and upgraded them to CSA II. Rightfully so: in Erby’s 10 years at the central office, his duties have expanded. “I have to know three or four software applications like the back of my hand to be able to help the customers and agents who call in,” he says. “When I first started, we didn’t have but one primitive phone system and one software application.”

THE BEST MEDICINE. Customer service can produce headaches, caused mostly by irate callers. Their biggest complaint: expired instant tickets. The funny thing, says Erby, is that most of the calls concern expired tickets ranging from $1 to $5. He has to explain that state lottery officials determine when instant games will be settled. Winners have 180 days from that date to cash in. This rule also is stated on the back of each ticket.

“We hear some choice words. I’ve been called a little bit of everything. It takes quite a lot of patience and a slow tongue not to respond.”

Around the workplace, Erby says, he injects a lot of humor to keep stress levels down. “If people could see behind the scenes how we release after we’ve hung up the phone from a stressful call, they’d get a good laugh or two. One of my co-workers will just scream at the top of her lungs.”

STATE OF HIGH ALERT. As sales representatives for the Illinois Lottery, Reed and Marty Kauchak, members of Local 2467 (Council 31), have found themselves in some tight situations. Reed, a gruff yet dapper man with a boxing background, deadpans: “You can’t let a lot of little things bother you if you work where we work sometimes. Summertime is especially rough,” a reference to hot temperatures leading to even-hotter tempers. Bullet-proof vests and cellular phones are issued on request to ensure safety.

“Some reps have walked right into holdups,” says Kauchak. “One guy who did took off six months because he was so shook up. A lot of us have to be careful when working in the city.”

Reed and Kauchak work out of Region I in Westchester, a beat that includes Cook County and the Chicago area. To monitor ticket sales, their jobs require them to visit lottery agents in the shops where the games are operated on behalf of the Illinois system. Sometimes that means going into neighborhoods affected by crime.

But thanks to the union, such nerve-racking experiences haven’t gone unnoticed. Council 31 forced a labor/ management meeting last year with state lottery officials to seek hazardous-duty pay for sales representatives. When the proposal was made, lottery officials said the budget had already been approved, so they couldn’t honor the request. “They weren’t really opposed to the idea, but the next best thing they could do was give us the vests and phones,” says Reed. “I appreciate the fact that they understood the dangers out there.” The council is still working, however, to get the reps the extra pay.

Although lottery work can be unpleasant at times, that doesn’t dampen workers’ enthusiasm. After all, how many jobs offer gratification in such dramatic fashion?