Pats inspired lottery tickets debut in NH

CONCORD, N. H. » The Super Bowl champion New England Patriots are lending their star power to a new lottery game.

The team’s owner, Robert Kraft, joined Republican Gov. Chris Sununu on Tuesday on the steps of the New Hampshire Statehouse, along with several Patriots cheerleaders and a local youth football team for the launch of the New England Patriots $ 5 scratch tickets.

The game, which is available only in New Hampshire in 1,200 stores starting Tuesday, features four, $ 100,000 grand prizes and the chance to enter a series of second- chance drawings to win Patriot tickets. Other prizes range from $ 5 to $ 100.

It’s the sixth year a Patriots’ lottery game has been offered— a partnership Kraft said has generated over $ 26 million in sales and netted $ 7 million for state education programs. Previously, the lottery offered a game tied to the Boston Red Sox in 2011 and 2014, and a promotion with the NHL’s Boston Bruins in 2015.

“We feel very close to the state of New Hampshire,” Kraft told a crowd of about 100 on hand for the launch, several wearing Patriots jerseys. “I love the people. All the people I meet here have that live free or die mentality. It’s about living free and being entrepreneurial and being good to your neighbors, which is so important.”

Kraft then offered Sununu a signed Tom Brady jersey “for all the people,” which the governor joked was “like an American flag. I’m not putting this on the ground.”

Sununu praised the Patriots for signing onto the partnership, saying their brand would only be good for the state’s lottery which “helps schools, helps education, is making a difference.”

“This is just an awesome day,” said Sununu, who later joined Kraft in tossing a few footballs to the crowd.

“We have to remind ourselves this is the New England Patriots that we are partnering with here, one of the premier organizations, not just locally, but in the world in terms of how they run their organization,” he said.

Sununu also joked he had met Kraft beforehand and tried to convince him to move the team here — noting there is no sales tax or income tax in New Hampshire. “I don’t know if they will be moving to New Hampshire just yet, but we are working on it,” he said. “I’m convinced I can get anyone up here.”

Kraft responded that he opened his first factory in New Hampshire in 1967 and since then has opened several more — including a state- of- the art facility in Dover last year.

“The governor was talking about trying to induce me to come up here,” he said. “I’ve been up here before he was born. The lottery is just the most recent venture for us.”

After the ticket launch, the Patriots held a minitraining camp on the Statehouse lawn for 100 players from the Merrimack Cardinals Pop Warner Football League. Twenty- five Merrimack youth cheerleaders trained with two New England Patriots cheerleaders.

Since 1964, the New Hampshire Lottery has raised $ 6 billion and brought in $ 1.7 billion for state education.