Oregon to promote slots in new campaign

State to promote video gambling in new campaign
Last Update: 11/30 12:11 pm

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Starting next month, an actor dressed as a knight will go on television to urge Oregonians to try their hands at video gambling.

The Oregon Lottery is hoping more people will venture into any of Oregon's 2,353 video lottery retailers after a Jan. 1 smoking ban forces all the establishments to go smoke free.

It will be the first time in the state's 16 years in the video gambling business that the Oregon Lottery uses advertising to promote video poker and slot machine gaming.

The lottery still will prohibit retailers bars, taverns, gambling parlors, lounges and other drinking establishments from advertising video poker and slots. But given projected losses of tens of millions of dollars in lottery revenue because of the smoking ban, the lottery is ending its practice of limiting advertising to promoting scratch tickets and lottery drawings.

The new campaign puts the state in the spot of touting a form of gaming that some experts decry as highly addictive.

Lottery spokesman Chuck Baumann says that up until now, the state has avoided advertising video poker and slots because of "the sensitivity of the product."

The state gradually has relaxed its marketing restrictions on video lottery since Oregon put its first poker game terminals in taverns in 1992.