With new ticket, Lottery goes deep into Patriot fandom

Ron Flagg of Portland loves the Maine State Lottery, and he loves the New England Patriot football team. Consider him a lock to buy a new Maine Lottery Patriots instant ticket, which debuts today in Maine.

"I had the day off. Here I am," Flagg said Thursday, decked out in a T-shirt marking the Patriots' 2007 undefeated season (memorably, the Patriots were defeated that post-season by the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII).

Flagg, who works at Cumberland Farms, was one of the first fans to arrive at Fitzpatrick Stadium Thursday for an unveiling of the Maine Lottery Patriots instant ticket, a $5 instant-cash-prize ticket bearing the Patriots' insignia and featuring an array of Patriot-related prizes that was rolled out on first day of Patriots training camp.

Flagg, a self-described lifelong New England Patriots fan, said he loves the lottery and plays it regularly.

"I play it all the time," he said. "I won a $3,000 scratch ticket one time, a couple of years back. I took my last $5 and played a hunch."

Suffice it to say he's also a big-time Patriots fan.

"We had the bad days and bad years, but they've come back. I've got to stay with them," he said.

Former Patriots center Pete Brock, who played with the team from 1976 to 1988, said he recalled Maine fans like Flagg bringing lobster down to the players at Gillette Stadium.

"Maine represents an awful lot of diehard fans that we enjoy having down in Foxborough," he said during Thursday's ceremony.

Lottery officials approached the Patriots about partnering on the new ticket, and after negotiations, the result was the Maine Lottery Patriots, a ticket festooned with football helmets and balls.

"I think people are going to be very impressed with the prizes with this game," said Lottery Director Dan Gwadosky.

The new ticket features $3.6 million in cash prizes, he said. The top cash prize is $50,000, with second-chance drawings for 24 pairs of Patriot season tickets; 160 VIP game ticket packages; three away-game trip packages; and Patriots merchandise.

The Maine Lottery Patriots instant ticket is the first licensed NFL lottery product for the Maine Lottery, and a further boost to the 36-year-old lottery, which is already thriving, exceeding state revenue projections.

"We ended June 30, we actually had a very good year, we were projected to bring in just under $49 million to return to the general fund, and we were up $2.6 million above projections," Gwadosky said.

"We traditionally roll out 50 to 60 instant tickets every year, and instant tickets interestingly are about 75 percent of all our sales," he said.

The state plans to release 1.2 million of the new tickets at 1,300 lottery agent locations.

The lottery also offers a new jackpot game, MegaMillions; and Megabucks; PowerBall; and the Pick-3 and Pick-4 games. Sales of the online tickets overall are up 12.3 percent this past fiscal year, the lottery reported.