Celebrating
an unexpected influx of visitors this week was Fortune Casino.com - and
it all started with a lottery site scratch ticket.
The Oregon Lottery likes to tout how its revenues create jobs and boost
economic development. But one of its latest instant scratch-off ticket
games apparently has been helping generate a tidy sum of revenue for the
owners of offshore-based Fortune Casino.com.
Call the confusion over the name "Casino Fortune" unintended offshoring,
if you will.
And while lottery officials say they don't see how anyone could confuse
a scratch-ticket game with Internet gambling, Fortune's casino officials
say their statistics show a 50 percent jump in Oregon visitors since the
lottery started the same-named game last spring.
The lottery's scratch ticket ( www.oregonlottery.org/scratch/cfortune.shtml
) game began May 4, and has a top prize of $80,000. One can play high
card, roulette, slots or 7-11 on the $10 tickets.
The number of Oregon participants in the Casino Fortune Website has grown
from 8,550 before the scratch ticket game's release to almost 12,500 at
present, said the spokesperson for the casino. In fact, he said, more than
2,700 Oregon clients responded to the registration question, "How did
you hear about us?" with the answer: "scratch ticket."
The estimated "windfall" from the brand confusion is approaching $950,000,
the spokesperson said, adding that the average new client spends $240 in first-month
deposits.
Apparently a trademark search was carried out prior to the production
of the Casino Fortune ticket and it was cleared it for use by the Oregon
Lottery due to the fact that the federal (trademark) is not in the same
field of services as instant tickets and services.
Lottery spokesmen said confusion was 'unlikely,' but the big boost in
the number of Oregon gamblers visiting the casino site speaks for itself,
according to the spokesperson.
"It's obvious to us that Oregon is not exactly Las Vegas or Atlantic City,"
he said. "In our database, clients coming in from the state of Oregon
are pretty slim." The big increase, the spokesperson said, "...coincided with the
issue of the Casino Fortune scratch tickets."
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