People are spending more money buying lottery tickets in Louisiana that ever before. New figures for the fiscal year that ended June 30th show the Louisiana Lottery Corporation ended its fiscal year with more than $653 million in revenue.
“The Lottery team is proud to have topped $650 million in sales for the very first time in our 32-year history with the last five years being our most successful!” said Lottery President Rose Hudson. “Solid scratch-off game sales fueled by generous prize payouts and exciting promotions as well as large jackpots helped drive a successful fiscal-year finish.”
The lottery’s best year ever translates into more money going into state coffers too.
"Resulting transfers to the state treasury for K-12 public education were more than $212 million, up nearly $20.9 million from last year and exceeding budgeted transfers by over $20.6 million," according to a news release.
The report shows scratch-offs continued to be the top seller, ending the year at $319.3 million. That is up approximately $26.5 million from last year.
Officials credit adjusting scratch-off game prize structures, increasing prize payouts, adding more higher price-point games and launching new types of games with "one-of-a-kind experiential prizes."
Next, sales of daily numbers games, Pick 3, Pick 4 and Pick 5, were the second highest revenue generator. They ended at approximately $138.4 million for fiscal year 2023.
The release says, "Multistate games Powerball and Mega Millions were given a 45% lift in 2023, thanks in large part to a $2 billion Powerball jackpot in November and $1.35 billion Mega Millions jackpot in January."
Officials say local businesses that sell Lottery products also benefit from the record sales.
"Fourth quarter retailer compensation totaled $8,331,936, including sales commission, incentives for cashing winning tickets and bonuses for selling big winning tickets, bringing fiscal year total earnings to $36.6 million."
