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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowSales of the Monopoly Millionaires' Club lottery game will end Dec. 26 in Indiana and across the country, Hoosier Lottery officials decided Monday.
"Like all good businesses, lotteries have to try new ideas," said Hoosier Lottery spokesperson Courtney Arango in a written statement. "We incorporated concepts into this game that have been popular elsewhere, but they did not resonate here."
The Hoosier Lottery and other participating states questioned the future of the money-losing game after Texas decided Dec. 11 to end participation. Sales were not high enough to cover jackpots.
States had high expectations for the game, which carries a top prize of $25 million and is supposed to offer "more $1 million prizes than any lottery game in U.S. history."
Originally conceived as a multi-tiered draw game, the Monopoly game debuted Oct. 19 in 23 states, including Indiana.
Rebecca Paul Hargrove, CEO of the Tennessee Education Lottery Corp. and co-chair of the Monopoly Millionaires' Club Steering Committee, said that lotteries can learn from the project.
"We look to provide our players with the new and innovative forms of entertainment so as to maximize our proceeds for the good causes lotteries fund. Approached from the right perspective, you can learn something from each product out there," she said. "As with any other consumer good, our goal is always to provide a game that players want."
Tickets will be sold until the 9:58 p.m. the day after Christmas for the final weekly drawing, which will occur at 11:15 p.m. the same day.
Nationally, lotteries also plan to continue to research the concepts behind the current game.
"We've repeatedly heard from players who say they want to see more people have a share of the winnings, rather than just one gigantic top prize," said Arango. "That was the inspiration for the current game, but players didn't respond to it as well as we'd hoped. We remain committed to developing games that will offer value to our players and mirror the success we've seen in other lottery games nationwide."
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