"LET'S GO TO THE RACES" GROCERY STORE PROMOTION OR GIMMICK ?

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In San Antonio, that lousy scam show aired on a Tuesday or Wednesday at 6:30PM on KSAT CH 12 around 1974-75. It was sponsored by a local grocery store, Handy Andy, that handed out tickets with every purchase. My poor father would get so upset that his horse lost the race at the very last moment, denying him is big cash prize, but he continued to watch it every week, with the same sad results. I knew it was fixed and just a sales gimmick to attract more customers, but I don't know why my father never bothered to realize that or maybe he just didn't care. That leads to another question, does anyone ever win any prizes from the big national sweepstakes contests, like the ones sponsored by VISA, Lowes, etc, etc? Does anyone ever bother to request a list of official winners? Are the winners ever acknowledge, publicized or even mentioned after the drawings? Are those contests just another advertising sham? Anyone, Anyone?

 

[mleach]

GOOD POINT. Maybe Kroger or Winn Dixie should consider updating the show for 2011. I think people would watch........again......just as they did in 1967.

"Let's Go To The Races" could very well be success today BUT its gonna have to be either Walmart or Target making some kind of deal with GSN to make it happen. Kroger despite being so well known is still "unknown" to many people ( just try finding a Kroger in New England or New York State for example ) also Kroger has since pulled out of a few markets over the years. Winn Dixie? Well.....has anyone in Seattle or Denver had heard of this chain?

But yes.."Let's Go To The Races" the program, it would be a success today. Maybe moreso.

 

[bpatrick]

Tennessee's anti lottery law is the same as Georgia with the three legal tests.

But my understanding is if you eliminate one of those tests, it is not a lottery.

All the store has to do is say that no purchase is necessary to get a race card. That's the way they did it in Memphis. As a little kid, I used to go to the Big Star down the street and ask for a card. If the owner was in a good mood, he'd give me a whole stack. I won the cheapest race once.

You're right in that if one of the tests is removed it's not a lottery, and most stores--and states--got around the issue by saying "no purchase is necessary" if you wanted a race card. I'm not sure if the Georgia Supreme Court overturned Georgia's law, but by the mid-'70s "Let's Go To The Races" and the similar "Winner's Circle" were back on the air in Atlanta. Maybe they got away with it with the "no purchase necessary" disclaimer.

Again, I have to go back to the '50s, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the FCC and ruled that telephone games such as "Stop The Music" and "Sing It Again" were not lotteries. There was one little catch that only Fred Allen (whose show was destroyed in the ratings by "Stop The Music") seemed to realize: "Stop The Music" aired on ABC radio Sunday nights from 8 to 9. On Sunday afternoons, the show's producers called the people they'd picked to be called that night and told them to be by their radios that evening. Allen pointed out that, other than that dozen or so people, no one had a chance of winning because they'd never be called. Well, he turned out to be right, as did Arthur Godfrey when he learned that ABC was going to program some telephone games against him in the morning (they never did). Was "Stop The Music" rigged? Yes, although it wasn't illegal then. Was it a lottery? I doubt it; I would argue that the "chance" test was taken away at least in part when people were notified ahead of time that they'd be called.

And, as I pointed out on another post, game cards for "Let's Go To The Races" and the other grocery-store giveaways were seeded so that the big winners came from stores trying to increase their volume. I used the example of Norfolk/Richmond/Salisbury, where they would run a crawl showing the previous week's winners; invariably there would be one
$1000 winner, who also invariably came from Salisbury. I think Giant Foods was the big chain up there, and Colonial was having difficulty competing; hence the big-money cards there.

 

[bpatrick]

@Oldiesfan:

The series I remember was around 1967-68. IIRC, the ticket from the grocery store had the actual name of the horse, not its number.

Locally in Miami, in 1974, there was a franchised game show called "Race to Riches" which involved horse races on videotape from about 2 weeks prior. This game show indeed involved numbers of the horse, using a spinning wheel. The host of the show was none other than Larry King....kind of a step toward his national fame. he was replaced shortly afterward by DJ Larry Shannon (WGBS).

I understand that the show was done in Boston too. It was franchised like "Bowling for Dollars" or "Romper Room."

cd

Didn't George DeWitt, host of the original "Name That Tune," host a local segment of one of those grocery-store games in Miami?

 

[nightfly61]

Kroger stores had it in the early 1980's. It could very well have been a scam with actors as winners on promos giving their testimonials.

 

[cd637299]

@bpatrick....I know who DeWitt is, but I was too young to remember if he was the one in these Miami games.

cd