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Kansas has new lottery games to benefit vets

Betty Boop has been enlisted for the Kansas Lottery’s Veterans Benefit games, just in time for Veterans Day. Two different $2 scratch-off tickets feature the venerable cartoon character dressed in a sailor outfit or a soldier’s uniform.

The tickets offer a shot at winning up to $10,000. One of the last big winners was a Vietnam veteran who bought a ticket worth $5,000 on the way to a doctor’s appointment at a VA hospital on Oct. 27.

The tickets are also considered novelties and collectibles, said Sally Lunsford, spokeswoman for the Kansas Lottery. They’ll be available for a few months or longer, until the last is sold by the 1,800 retailers across the state. Along with Betty Boop, the lottery has a new $1 Military Mascots Veterans Benefit scratch-off game featuring mascots from each of the services on five different tickets, with the possibility of winning up to $5,000.

Since legislation authorizing the Kansas Lottery’s Veterans Benefit games was passed in 2003, nearly $4 million in net profit has been transferred to Kansas National Guard Education Assistance Act scholarships, the Kansas Veterans’ Home in Winfield, the Kansas Soldiers’ Home at Fort Dodge, and the Veterans Cemetery System.

This year, the Kansas legislature approved a measure allowing 30 percent of the profits to go to the Museum of the Kansas National Guard through June 30, 2010.

Lunsford said officials are working on a new round of scratch-off tickets featuring the seals of each of the organizations that benefit from the lottery.

Kansas is one of a handful of states in which lottery proceeds benefit veterans. Initially, the Veterans Benefit game tickets were sold only from May to November, but this year, sales were expanded year-round.