Audit - Sports tickets missing from ledger

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Hundreds of tickets to professional and college sporting events provided to the State Lottery Commission were unaccounted for, according to a new state audit.

The Lottery Commission receives tickets in exchange for purchasing advertising at sporting events. But it was unclear where 30 percent of those tickets went during the three years ending June 30, said the report released Wednesday by State Auditor Claire McCaskill.

In all, 1,895 tickets out of 6,395 tickets could not be accounted for. The remaining 70 percent of tickets were tracked, but there were questions about who received them.

No uniform procedure

"The SLC does not have a uniform procedure for managing or accounting for these tickets, and various individuals were responsible for different events," the audit said. "There were some events and tickets for which SLC could not provide us with detailed documentation regarding who attended the event or how tickets were distributed."

The audit said the commission has an informal policy to give tickets to lottery retailers as incentives and sales promotions.

For sponsorships not involving minority or women's events, the audit found that 208 of 8,887 tickets were given to non-retailers and 81 of those ended up in the hands of commissioners, the executive director or commission employees.

That included 32 tickets to the St. Louis Cardinals, 28 to the St. Louis Rams and another eight to the Kansas City Chiefs.

The cost of all 208 tickets would have had a value of about $2,500, the audit said.

During the year that ended last June, the Lottery Commission spent more than $3 million on sponsorships.

Insider use of tickets

McCaskill said in an interview Wednesday that better procedures should be in place to make sure tickets are used properly.

"Being able to afford to go to professional sporting events, especially professional football events, is an expensive endeavor," McCaskill said. "If they are going to spend money on football tickets they ought to make sure the tickets are used to promote lottery sales and not the convenience of insiders."

The Lottery Commission said in an audit response that it has revised or re-evaluated many of its policies regarding the use of the tickets. Most changes went into effect last September, the commission said.

The audit also found that the Lottery Commission had spent $10 million in advertising for the last two years ending June 30 and that there was no clear evidence that the money spent increased lottery ticket sales. Included in the advertising budget was the "Luckytown" television promotions.

"To ensure these monies are used in the most effective manner possible, the SLC should have an independent review to determine to what extent and what type of advertising affects the sale of lottery products," the audit said.

The Lottery Commission responded that Missouri's advertising expenditures as compared to its revenues fared favorably with 36 of 38 other state lotteries nationwide.

McCaskill said she still was skeptical.