18.

- [Narrator] Depending on where you live,

getting the vaccine means the chance

at a check like this.

- That's right, you could win $1 million.

- How about a chance to win a million dollars?

- The winner each Wednesday will receive $1 million.

- [Narrator] Faced with falling vaccination rates,

states across the US

are rolling out incentives to get residents

to roll up their sleeves.

- Are we ready?

- [Narrator] But are these offers working

and are they worth the cost?

- Stay safe, Ohio.

- We needed to just shake things up.

We needed to bring some excitement

and I felt that a million dollars

would bring excitement.

- [Reporter] What a night it is for you.

- [Narrator] Lotteries like this one in Ohio

are part of a ballooning list

of vaccine incentives

that has included free doughnuts, free beer,

fishing licenses, baseball tickets,

a lap around Talladega Superspeedway and.

- We're gonna give five custom hunting rifles

and five custom hunting shotguns away.

- [Narrator] Many of these freebies

and lotteries started popping up last month

as the rate of vaccination in the US slumped

to about half of what it was at its peak in April.

- It's not surprising that we've reached a point

where the supply of vaccines far exceeds demand

and it's time to start getting creative

about how to get some of the stragglers

over the finish line.

But at the same time,

we have to be very clear eyed

about what these incentives can and can't do.

- How you y'all doing? - Hey, how are you?

- [Narrator] When Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced

the Vax-a-Million Lottery on May 12th,

it was the first of its kind,

offering adults a chance

to win one of five one million dollar prizes

and teens a chance to win one

of five full-ride scholarships.

- We were going down, down, down.

And we couldn't break it.

And no matter what we did.

So we didn't know what else to do.

So we came up with this idea,

having no guarantee that it would work.

- [Narrator] Experts like Dr. Emily Largent,

who researches how incentives

are used in medical studies say lotteries

won't motivate everyone.

- This is not a cure-all,

this is something fun,

it makes sense to try

but we shouldn't count on this

as being the magic bullet.

- [Narrator] Recent polling shows about 12%

of Americans still plan to wait and see

before getting the vaccine.

Of those, only a small number said

they would be motivated to do so

by guaranteed incentives

like $100 from their state

or free tickets to a sporting event or concert.

These offers and lotteries

may even trigger the opposite response.

- In some instances,

offering large amounts of money

to do something that people perceive as risky

or burdensome can make them feel like it's even riskier

or more burdensome than it actually is.

- [Narrator] Some lawmakers call these cash offers a bribe.

But Dr. Largent says she's not worried

about these incentives taking away an individual's choice.

- The bigger concerns really are

that they can distract from all the work

that needs to be going in

to trying to promote vaccination in the community.

- [Narrator] That includes providing further education

and access to vaccines.

The lottery, she says, should only be part

of a broader toolkit to promote vaccination.

But if these incentives are the right use of money

is heavily debated.

In Ohio's case, the $5 million lottery

was pulled from federal coronavirus relief funds.

- I knew at the time that we announced it,

people were gonna say, "DeWine is crazy."

They were gonna say that's a waste of money.

But the real waste is for people to continue to die.

- [Narrator] Ohio resident, Jessica Nagy,

who got her shot before the lottery announcement

says the money was well spent.

- It could have spent on advertising

or marketing to educate people on the vaccine

but I mean, how effective would that really be

when anybody can get on Facebook

or social media and say anything they want?

- I got my COVID vaccine.

- So have I. - I have too.

- [Narrator] But so far,

Ohio has spent more than $11 million

on traditional advertising to promote vaccination.

- Taking a relatively small amount of money

in the scheme of things,

like $5 million for incentives in Ohio

and offering it in this way

that's drawn so much attention

has a real multiplier effect.

This has drawn attention

not only in the State of Ohio but nationally.

- Ohio Governor Mike DeWine

has unlocked a secret.

- [Narrator] In the week leading up

to the lottery announcement,

Ohio averaged 13,400 new vaccinations a day, then.

- A couple days after we announced it,

we were starting to see in our numbers going up.

- [Narrator] In the week following,

an average of 26,500 Ohioans

were getting their first shot each day,

a number caveated by the fact

that teens aged 12 to 15 were newly eligible

for the vaccine.

But still, the state reported a 28% week-over-week increase

in vaccination rates among those 16

and older the weekend after the announcement.

- Incentives make sense for some people.

They're likely to be motivating for individuals

who are say young and healthy.

Though vaccination, they're not opposed to it,

but it's not really a priority for them.

So offering something that is a tangible benefit

can help get them there sooner.

- [Narrator] Nagy had initially planned to wait

to get her 12 and 14-year-olds their shots.

- With myself, I thought a lot more comfortable just going

and getting the vaccine with my kids.

I did kinda wanna see like nothing popping up

like crazy side effects or anything like that.

- [Narrator] But after hearing about Vax-a-Million.

- I thought why not?

A free ride to college sounds great.

Why wait?

I knew I was gonna probably do it anyway,

so yeah, I thought that would be awesome.

So I just went ahead and got 'em vaccinated.

- [Narrator] That said, momentum from the campaign in Ohio

may be slowing.

In the week following the drawing

of the first winner,

the state's daily average of new vaccinations

was back down to about 11,000.

- I think seeing the winners out there

is gonna continue to generate some excitement

but if it doesn't do anything else

besides what it's already done, it's been worth it.

- [Narrator] One potential downside

for states offering big prizes still looms

as it appears increasingly likely boosters

will be needed to maintain protection from the virus.

- We talk about the spoonful

of sugar helping the medicine go down

but if you can only get people to take the medicine

with the sugar, you have habituated them to that.

We might be creating a precedent now

for something that can be expensive

and potentially inefficient in the future.

- [Narrator] Setting a precedent

doesn't worry Governor DeWine

who's focused on getting shots in arms now

as his state still lags behind the national average.

- Not every decision we've made

has been write but it's been based

on the best facts that we could gather.

And so are we gonna offer this in the future?

I don't know.

But we're gonna continue to do what it takes

to knock this virus down.

- [Narrator] As she did with her initial vaccination,

Nagy says she won't wait for an incentive

before getting a booster.

- Yeah, I definitely wouldn't expect it

but if it happens, great.

A happy correlation.