Turn on the TV today and you'll see a trumpet-waving band and cheerleaders marching through the living room of a startled couple who just bought an N.C. lottery ticket.

Flip the channel and you'll see a quieter ad promoting the $135 million Powerball jackpot in South Carolina.

Or crank up the radio. You'll hear the bell of a store door opening to the loud strum of an electric guitar.

"Excuse me!" a voice yells. "What are you doing, dude?"

"The sign outside said, `Play Here,' " comes the reply.

"Oh, that `Play Here' sign, that's for the North Carolina Education Lottery."

A day before the kickoff of the state's new lottery, advertising is in full swing. TV and radio ads for the games started this week. Not coincidentally, the S.C. lottery plans to start airing TV ads today in Charlotte and other border markets.

"What we want to do is subtly remind people there are still South Carolina games going on," says Ernie Passailaigue, director of the S.C. games. "We have a jackpot of $135 million."

Reminders shouldn't be hard to find.

Signs are up at more than 5,000 N.C. retailers, mostly gas stations and convenience stores. They'll start selling tickets at 6 a.m. Thursday. Thousands more sites already offer tickets in South Carolina.

North Carolina's lottery will start with four scratch-off games, with a top prize of $100,000 in the Carolina Cash game. South Carolina, by contrast, not only has tonight's Powerball drawing but more than 30 online and instant games. North Carolina won't begin the multi-state game until May 30.

"Our attitude is that for the instant scratch-off tickets, (people) aren't going to drive a long distance to purchase them," says Alice Garland, deputy executive director of the N.C. lottery. "Until we get Powerball up and running, I expect people will be going to South Carolina to buy Powerball tickets."

Passailaigue says his lottery plans "limited advertising" in North Carolina, whose residents account for about 12 percent of S.C. ticket sales. Most advertising will center on "jackpot awareness," driving home the theme that players can win truly big money in the Palmetto State.

"You don't need any fancy-shmancy commercials to do that," says Passailaigue.

He says ads will run in selected N.C. markets when "there's a jackpot size that makes a difference."

North Carolina plans to spend $8 million on advertising in its first year. The Charlotte firm Wray Ward Laseter is producing the campaign. The firm stands to make about $960,000 in its first year; the rest goes to produce and air the ads.

But there are strings.

To appease critics and win votes, state lawmakers added restrictions. Lottery ads can't "have the primary purpose of inducing persons to participate." They can't use cartoon characters that could appeal to children.

"There's a line between educating people how to play and enticing them to play," says Garland. "One thing you'll never see us do is run an ad saying, `You're going to win millions' or `It will change your life.' That's enticing people to play. And you'll never see us doing anything like that."

Such restrictions shouldn't hurt, says Robert Lauterborn, an advertising professor at UNC Chapel Hill. Makers of products ranging from pharmaceuticals to tobacco to toys all have some curbs on advertising, through regulation or market considerations.

"There are all sorts of advertising which have to be done under restrictions of one kind or another," Lauterborn says. "In fact, almost every advertiser has certain sets of restrictions."

In the early going, the N.C. lottery will benefit from "free" publicity in the form of news reports. Lauterborn says paid advertising will also fill a need.

"What the publicity has done is make most people aware that there is going to be a lottery," he says. "But it's a long way from there to telling people where to go to scratch off a ticket."