By Scott Woods

A young woman outfitted in a neon-green t-shirt approaches Barry Riley in the wide hallway just outside the studio.

“Can you help me?” the woman said, thrusting forward a solid, dark-green men’s dress shirt and an iron. From just a few feet away, I can see a surname displayed prominently on her shirt, as well as half a dozen Ohio Lottery scratch-off tickets safety-pinned all around her torso. “This shirt is for [my brother] – I need somewhere to iron it.”

The woman’s brother was in desperate need of a change of clothes, indeed. As Cash Explosion’s returning champion, he had cleared a cool $105,000 at an earlier taping of one of the nation’s last state lottery game shows. Now, five minutes before the start of the final shoot of the month, his sister wants to make sure he’s not wearing the same dress shirt and tie two shows in a row.

“Sure sweetheart, let me help you,” said Riley, a shaved-bald, solidly built man of average height and above-average seriousness, who serves as executive producer and brand manager of Cash Explosion for the Ohio Lottery Commission, which is celebrating its 25th year in 2012. The two run off to press the just-ripped-from-the-package shirt as the pulsating rhythm of a deep baseline and prolonged flutters of excitable clapping roar through the open stage door behind them. With about a minute to spare, the newly wardrobed champion bolts onto the stage – heavy fold wrinkles and all – and is greeted by the frenzied crowd of more than 100, desperate to watch him vie for more.

“We’re the last man standing,” Riley told me before the shoot in a conference room at Mills James Productions in Hilliard, ticking off a list of other state lotto shows that have recently met their untimely demise.

It’s not like this one-of-a-kind Saturday evening television staple has always been on top of the world, however. When Riley joined the Ohio Lottery nearly six years ago, sales of its No. 1 instant scratch-off ticket – which also serves as a TV show entry card for some winners – had dipped to around 550,000 weekly, he said. Today, that number has crept up to 900,000, a clear sign that a more modern, revamped show has contributed heavily to the ticket’s renewed popularity.

“We measure success with how many tickets we sell,” Riley said. “At the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to.”

Heavily labeled as a game show that appealed almost solely to Ohio’s grandparent population, Riley and his production team, which includes producer Holly Berger, helped to oversee a dramatic transformation that took into account every tiny detail of the show.

“When we brought Cash Explosion back (from a one-year hiatus as Make Me Famous, Make Me Rich in 2006) . . . we made a number of changes . . . things that we felt would make the show have a larger appeal,” Riley said. “As the old cliche goes, ‘It’s not your grandfather’s Cash Explosion show.’ We’ve changed the set, the theme music, the hosts . . . just the pacing of the show. There are a lot of things that are different from just five years ago.”

On this Wednesday afternoon, the studio audience was packed with folks of all ages, races and probably creeds, all cheering merrily as the warm-up comic, Dan Swartwout, teases and pokes and passes out prizes for especially enthusiastic guests.

“We wanted to create appeal. If you like a game show, we wanted you to be able to watch Cash Explosion. Many people associated it with, ‘That’s the show that grandma watches, or grandpa watches.’ That’s great; we love having that, but we also want to have appeal for those who just click the TV on at 7:30 on a Saturday night and found something of interest.”

Viewers interested in winning large sums of money will be especially excited for the show’s 25th anniversary plans, which begin in March and run for 25 weeks through August.

Dubbed “Celebrating 25 Years of Winning in 25 Weeks,” the six-month stretch includes increases in prize money and the creation of a Super Show, in which contestants can win up to $250,000. Also being planned is a fan appreciation day. “I can’t divulge anything about that yet, but it’s going to be family friendly,” Riley said.

For Riley and his colleagues, increased ticket sales are great, and the success of the new show is satisfying, but working for the Lottery Commission can have its inherent gifts.

“These are everyday people on this show, unlike what you see on Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune,” Riley said. “Those people have to have a certain skill set, or have a certain look or personality, or are willing to do crazy stuff, or whatever. When the people of Ohio turn on Cash Explosion on a Saturday night, it could be you or me, or my brother. There’s a commonality to the show based on the fact that these are real people with real lives, and we don’t discriminate against anyone for anything. It’s literally the luck of the draw.”

“We had a contestant a few years ago, he and his wife were going into foreclosure: they were about to lose their home. He happened to win, got in the championship game – $50,000. And he cried like a baby. For me, it’s gratifying to know that this many people are really and truly helped.”

To become a contestant, you’ll need a winning instant lottery ticket, but to find out about watching Cash Explosion in person and more, visit www.cashexplosionshow.com.