Anybody Seen Wayne Walker?

"They're winning at Sunoco!" has been the come-on TV jingle for Sun Oil Co.'s "Sunny Dollars" game, and each week a high-speed teletype hammers out the names of winners, followed by amounts ranging from $1 to $1,000. Humble Oil invites drivers to stop by at its filling stations to play "Tigerama." Mobil's "Winning Line" offers $1,000 to anybody who completes a card with pictures of three gas pumps; Sinclair offers up to $2,500 to customers who match up coupons to spell out a slogan in its "Dino Dollars" contest. With no requirement that the driver buy gas (thus ensuring that the games will not be classified as lotteries) and with prizes including watches, luggage, color-TV sets, automobiles and up to $10,000 in cash, the oil companies' 304 different current giveaway contests would seem like hard acts to knock.

In fact, the harder the oil companies plug their contests, the more massive grows the frustration of the players whose glove compartments are full to overflowing with nonwin coupons. To jolly them along, American's "Super Pro," which is offering 250 Mustangs to the first 250 who can fill five blank spaces with the pictures of professional football stars, produced on TV in person the hardest of all the stars to find, Detroit Lions' Wayne Walker. The gag brought nothing but hollow laughter from the thousands of Super Pro players still lacking the Walker stamp.

Nor are players the only ones building up resentments. Gasoline attendants find themselves wasting up to ten minutes per customer explaining the rules of each new game. Adding to the attendants' frustration, many drivers have taken to driving into station after station for a token gallon of gas while picking up more game chances. "America's service stations stand in danger of becoming one enormous coast-to-coast casino," warns E. D. Brockett, chairman of Gulf Oil Corp., one of the few major oil companies to abstain from the games. "Costs will rise and service will suffer," says Brockett, who foresees the day when motorists will say, "Fill her up, check the oil, and where's the roulette wheel?"

Bucks in the Gutter. Because contests are competitive, most oil companies keep the results secret, and players have no way of knowing how long the odds are. But they are trying all kinds of gambits to make them shorter. Newspapers carry personal ads seeking matches, with an offer to split the prize. John Racanelli, owner of a Chicago pizza parlor, is typical; he spent $8 advertising in two papers for the other half of his $2,500 Dino Dollar card. "Everybody who called had the same coupon I did," says Racanelli. "I never won anything."

In Boston, Barney Myerson, manager of Crown Cab Co., had his drivers pool their contest cards. "It didn't pay me to open the envelopes," Myerson found. "I ripped open 1,200, and we won exactly $1." In Charlotte, N.C., Observer Columnist Kays Gary tried even harder. As a fund-raising scheme for Holy Angels Nursery, he invited readers to send in their cards and coupons. Last week, having totted up 6,323 cards from four states, he found that the winnings were just $21, most of it in 25-c- driblets. Said Gary in disgust: "A man would have as much luck going up Tryon Street with a shovel trying to find a thousand bucks in a gutter."

Sensitive to criticism that too few people win, Shell Oil Co. recently announced that 670,386 players won $1,400,531 in its "Americana" contest in five Western states, listed the names of the 54 who won the top $2,500 prizes. Humble Oil, which is testing its new game, "Heads or Tails," in Houston, makes clear in its TV advertising that $50,000 will be distributed in the area "no matter how long it takes." But this may not be enough to satisfy the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Deceptive Practices; it is now investigating the oil-company giveaways, including number of tickets printed and the methods of distributing them.

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