Vaccination Lotteries: the Wave of the Future?
Published June 11, 2021 by Lee R
Minor resistance will not be enough to stop the leveraging of lotteries to incentivise subsiding vaccinations in the US.
An interesting incentive is being offered to lotto players across America: getting vaccinated.
Trending Out of Ohio
The trend set by the state of Ohio has some states offering residents with at least one shot the opportunity to participate in exclusive lotteries paying out big bucks.
Oregon's Participation
Oregon is the latest state to join the movement with governor Katie Brown announcing the creation of a $1.9 million lottery for vaccinated residents, with the grand prize the proverbial cool $1 mil.
Using Federal Funds
The $1.9m used for the rewards will come from COVID-19 stimulus funds. Ohio started the trend of using stimulus friends for exclusive lotteries for the vaccinated by offering 5 $1 million federal funded prizes.
The Oregon Vaccination Lottery
In addition to the $1 million grand prize, the state of Oregon will further issue $10,000 to 36 more adults, one for each county in the state. Further, Oregon will duplicate Ohio by offering the youth a chance to win as well, with five kids aged 12 to 17 who have received at least one dose selected for $100,000 college savings plan scholarships.
Waning Vaccination Rates
These new offerings are in fact necessary outreach programs in light of Oregon and most other states seeing the vaccination rate tail off of late. Johns Hopkins data in fact reports that seven-day daily average vaccinations rolling averages fell from 47,625 on April 8 to 32,350 as of last Friday May 21st.
In Oregon, over 1.6 million residents have been vaccinated, or approximately 39.3 percent of the population.
State Funds in Maryland
In the state of Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan announced a state VaxCash promotion running through July 3, where the state will daily draw the name of one vaccinated $40,000 recipient, culminating July 4th with a $400,000 grand prize drawing. The $2 million for those funds are being drawn from the state lottery promotional budget.
Outlook
Kentucky and New York are among other states joining the vaccination lottery movement, with some bills likely to be introduced to shutter the programs; but in the mean time, the movement to use the lottery as a tool to encourage vaccinations looks to be expanding across the individual states of America.
