PETA upset with lottery commercial

AUSTIN (KXAN) - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced its displeasure Tuesday with a Texas Lottery television ad featuring an elephant.

The ad is for the lottery's $500 Million Blockbuster scratch-off game, which features an elephant in the room talking about the “huge payouts and big prices.” A voiceover at the end of the commercial says the game “is just too big to ignore.”

PETA said it called the Texas Lottery Commission after receiving 75 complaints, and the organization said the ad exploits elephants.

A lottery commission spokesman said it declined PETA's requests for the agency to stop airing the ads and to promise to never use exotic animals in its commercials in the future.

“The American Humane Society was on site the whole time the commercial was being shot,” said Bobby Heath, with the Texas Lottery Commission.

Heath said the humane society sent a letter to the commission’s ad agency stating the animal was treated properly and not harmed during the making of the commercial.

However, PETA said it is more than how the elephant in the ad was treated.

“Elephants used in the entertainment industry are traumatized when they are taken from their mothers as babies, and they are then trained through domination, fear and punishment,” PETA said in a press release.

PETA spokesperson Kristi Phelps said it is unnatural for an elephant to "stand under hot television lights on a set.”

While the Texas Lottery Commission said the scheduled two-week commercial blitz is ending, the state agency said it has another set of commercials scheduled to run again in a few weeks with that same elephant.