The Iowa Lottery expects to finish the fiscal year at the end of June taking in more money than predicted.
Lottery CEO Terry Rich says they projected revenue of $69.8 million. “It appears right now that we are going to be around the 78 to 79 — 9 to 10 million dollars better than what was budgeted,” Rich says.
Rich says the performance is good considering the economic conditions in the state, and the fact there was a mega jackpot in the previous year.
“You know we had a big bump last year with the 1.5 billion dollar Powerball jackpot. In one week we sold about 20 million dollars worth of tickets and had about 10 million dollars in proceeds,” Rich says. “If you take that together with what we are doing this year — we are doing slightly better than last year without that one big run.” Rich says their original product — scratch tickets — have helped keep revenues up.
“We continue to have really strong sales in scratch tickets, and also with a couple of small Powerball runs this year. So, all in all, our sales continue to be strong,” Rich says. He isn’t sure if they will continue to see the revenue increases they have seen in the last several years.
“At some point…you’d anticipate that sales would level off,” according to Rich, “so that’s why we always budget conservatively, so we are able to provide that.” Rich talked about the year end projections at the Iowa Lottery Board meeting Tuesday. Rich also discussed efforts to improve security surround the sale of all types of tickets. He says they are always taking steps to try and improve and says the continues strong sales shows people have confidence in the Iowa Lottery.
“People vote with their pocketbooks when it comes to the lottery. We’re an option purchase,” Rich says. “So every day when someone walks to the counter to purchase a ticket they have to believe that it is fair and honest and that they have a chance to win.”
Rich told the Iowa Lottery Board that the organization does 130 million transactions each year with the purchase and cashing in of tickets and the number of problems are few compare to the amount of transactions.