Louisiana lottery ticket sales skyrocket to $430M

The sale of all Louisiana Lottery Corp. tickets soared to almost $430 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30, the second-highest sales total since the lottery began operations two decades ago, officials reported Monday. Lottery spokeswoman Kelly Spell tells The Times-Picayune the sales figures mean the lottery has turned over to the state about $156.9 million in the fiscal year. By law, the state must receive 35% of the sales, and the winners’ shares total 50%. Retailers receive 5% of the sales, and the lottery can keep no more than 10% of the money generated. Spell says the $156.9 million turned over to the state for elementary and secondary education needs included $5.5 million from the agency’s “operational efficiency.” The total remitted to the state in the last fiscal year is almost $25 million more than what had been projected, she says. The ticket sales of $429.6 million cover the period from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012, the state’s fiscal year. In the first fiscal year of operation, in 1992-93, the lottery sold $494.7 million in tickets. Since the lottery began in 1991, more than $7.1 billion in revenue has been generated, mainly from ticket sales; about $2.5 billion of that revenue has been transferred to the state. The lottery normally averages about $319 million in annual sales, but the games have exceeded that average in the past several years. The full story is available here.