Lottery shuts down 'All or Nothing' game

"All or Nothing," the newest Texas Lottery game, is kaput. For now, at least.

The Texas Lottery Commission "temporarily suspended" sales just before noon on Monday. The game was halted after GTECH, the state's lottery operator, notified the commission of a design flaw.

"It was brought to our attention that there is a game design issue with 'All or Nothing' and while there are more than 2 million possible number combinations, some of our players were gravitating to a smaller subset of number combinations and we saw the potential of unusually high prize payouts," commission spokeswoman Kelly Cripe said Tuesday.

She denied that the game was stopped because of too many winners or because too much money had been won.

"We took this step as a precautionary measure to protect the state from unexpected financial liability," Cripe said. "The game has performed as intended and the prizes awarded to players are what we expected."

Despite the game's temporary demise, all prizes on winning tickets will be honored by the lottery.

The shutdown is a stunning contradiction of comments last month from Texas Lottery Executive Director Gary Grief who praised "All or Nothing" as the lottery industry's "best draw game innovation in the last several years."

The game, which began on Sept. 9, is relatively simple. Players pick 12 numbers from 1 to 24. Each ticket is $2.

There are four drawings daily - morning, day, evening and night - Monday through Saturday.

The way to win the largest payout - $250,000 - is to hit all dozen numbers or none at all. The hourglass prize scheme offers nothing to those who choose 5, 6, or 7 correct numbers. The smallest reward, $2, is won by choosing 4 or 8 matching numbers. Those with 3 or 9 correct digits win $10. Ten or two correct? Fifty bucks. There's $500 for those who pick just one correct number or 11.

Lottery officials are considering limits on the number of tickets that can be bought per drawing for each combination of 12 numbers. "The practice of setting liability limits is common in the lottery industry for games that offer guaranteed prizes," a news release said.

In its first eight months, the game generated sales of $62.5 million and paid $36.7 million - or 59 percent of sales - in prizes. Of the leftover $25.8 million, an estimated $19.7 million - or roughly 32 percent - went to the Foundation School Fund, which supports public education in Texas.

Putting "All or Nothing" on ice challenges Grief's recent accolades. According to a transcript of the May 7 commission meeting, he said the game "has proven to be extremely successful" as were its four daily draws.

"The sales and revenue for that game have exceeded our wildest expectations," he said. "We have already matched the full year sales projection."

Longtime Texas Lottery watchdog Dawn Nettles of Garland said she believes "All or Nothing" was pulled because of sluggish sales.

"This is a bad game," she said. "They haven't lost money, per se, but their bottom line on this game is not what it should be."

Nettles, who publishes The Lotto Report online newsletter, agreed that "All of Nothing" was poorly designed.

"There are really not enough numbers in the game," she said. "The school fund should see 38 percent. By offering all these guaranteed prizes, the state is losing."