Lottery Winners Have Been On A Roll!

The lottery's results for its latest financial year are in, and it was quite a year for lottery winners!

Preliminary figures show that lottery sales totaled $256.3 million in fiscal year 2010, which ended June 30. That marks the highest sales total from lotto, instant-scratch and pull-tab games since the lottery’s start in 1985.

Lottery players also had a good year, taking home a record $150.5 million in prizes from the lottery's core products. That's a 4 percent increase from the previous record prize total from those products of $144.7 million set back in FY 2008.

Bottom line, the Iowa Lottery returned more than $208 million to Iowans during the year either directly in prizes or as profits to support the state programs that benefit us all.

Here's a closer look:

The unaudited figures released today show that the lottery raised more than $57.9 million in profits for state programs during FY 2010, down slightly from the lottery's profits total the year before. Lottery proceeds to the state were impacted during FY 2010 on a couple fronts: The lottery had expenses of about $1.5 million related to the State Employee Retirement Incentive Program approved during the 2010 legislative session. The retirement incentive program hadn’t been part of the picture when the lottery’s lottery’s budget for the year was set. But accounting standards required that all expenses from the program be recorded during FY 2010.

Meanwhile, prize payouts were ahead of projections for the year. That's in comparison to FY 2009, when prizes in instant-scratch games in particular ran behind prize totals during the same time period a year earlier. Those kinds of fluctuations are just part of the random nature of lottery games, and they'll average out over time.

Here's another really positive number: Lottery players in Iowa now have helped the lottery raise $5.4 million for the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund. The Lottery's first games to benefit our state's veterans and their families began sales in July 2008. When the idea of games dedicated to veterans was initially discussed, the lottery had estimated it could raise between $2 million and $3 million annually for the Veterans Trust Fund. The FY 2009 total was $2.8 million, with another $2.6 million added in our latest year!

Here's another interesting stat: Iowa Lottery players won nine prizes of $1 million in FY 2010 compared to just two $1 million prizes during the previous fiscal year!

So how do lottery proceeds make a difference in Iowa? Today, they have three main purposes: They provide support for veterans, help for a variety of significant projects through the state General Fund, and backing for the Vision Iowa program, which was implemented to create tourism destinations and community attractions in the state and build and repair schools.

Comments

[Mike byrne]

It's about time that Iowans are starting to hit some big jackpots.It was beginning to look like Powerball was stacked against Iowans.Now,if only my numbers would hit!