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Pennsylvania Lottery generated record sales and prize revenues in 2017-18

MIDDLETOWN — The Pennsylvania Lottery announced Thursday that it sold a record of more than $4.2 billion in games in the 2017-18 fiscal year, and paid out...
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MIDDLETOWN — The Pennsylvania Lottery announced Thursday that it sold a record of more than $4.2 billion in games in the 2017-18 fiscal year, and paid out a record of more than $2.7 billion in prizes.

More than $1 billion in revenues were generated for older Pennsylvanians, the Lottery said.

“We’re proud that this was the seventh consecutive year in which we exceeded $1 billion in proceeds to benefit older adults,” Lottery executive director Drew Svitko said in the press release. “I’m grateful for the support of our players, business partners and the entire Lottery team for making this record year possible.”

Overall results of the fiscal year, which ran July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018, include:

  • Traditional game sales totaled $4,200,564,811, up by $199.5 million year-to-year and breaking the previous sales record of $4.13 billion from the 2015-16 fiscal year.
  • Net revenue generated for the Lottery Fund totaled $1,093,645,976, an increase of $47.9 million from the prior year.
  • Prizes paid grew to a record of more than $2.7 billion, an increase of $145.5 million. A total of 67 players won prizes of $1 million or more during the year. Overall, approximately 65 cents of every lottery sales dollar went back to winners.
  • More than 9,300 licensed Lottery retailers statewide, many of them small and family-owned businesses, earned more than $224.1 million in sales commissions. That marked an increase of $12.7 million from the prior year.

By-category sales summaries are as follows:

  • Sales of Scratch-Offs games totaled a record of more than $2.8 billion, up by $97.6 million, or 3.6 percent, from the previous year and surpassing the previous record of $2.79 billion set in 2015-16. These games accounted for over 67 percent of total sales. 
  • Sales of Draw Games – including the PICK family of games and Wild Ball, Treasure Hunt, Cash 5, Match 6, Millionaire Raffle, Cash4Life®, Powerball®, and Mega Millions® – totaled $1.25 billion for the fiscal year, up $34.8 million, or nearly 2.9 percent, from the previous year’s total. Highlights from the category include:
    • Sales of multi-state games (Powerball®, Mega Millions® and Cash4Life®) grew by nearly $55 million, or almost 15 percent, from the prior year. Several large Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots helped to grow revenues for this category, as did a change in the base price for Mega Millions (from $1 to $2) in October.
    • Match 6 Lotto sales totaled more than $113.3 million, up by more than $33.7 million, or 42.4 percent, from the prior year. Last August, the game changed from twice-weekly to nightly drawings. 
  • Sales of Fast Play games totaled over $114.4 million, exceeding estimates by more than $14 million. This was the popular category’s first full fiscal year of sales. 

“It’s important to note that two new products, Keno and iLottery, also contributed to our success, although both were launched toward the end of the fiscal year,” Svitko added.

Keno, which went on sale May 1, generated more than $7.6 million in sales. New iLottery online interactive games, which launched May 22, were responsible for $20.8 million in play through June 30.

“These encouraging results show that our ongoing modernization efforts are succeeding,” Svitko said. “With the Lottery facing increased competition from sports wagering, mini-casinos and other new forms of gambling, we must continue to work hard to grow revenues to benefit older Pennsylvanians.” 

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