It’s that time of year when we report how the lottery is doing as a business. The short answer is that we’re doing well – the past year was a good one.
Sales of scratch tickets here in Iowa set a record in fiscal year 2015, which ended June 30. The lottery achieved overall annual results among the Top 4 in its 30-year history, and the purchase and move of our headquarters location also was completed on time and under budget in the past year.
Lottery sales have topped the $300 million mark for the fourth straight year and proceeds to state causes and prizes to players also were among the lottery’s best.
So what’s behind the numbers? We’ve put a lot of effort into diversifying our product mix and keeping a variety of games on the market to give customers choices. It’s our job to take care of the behind-the-scenes work so you as our players can just have fun and dream a little.
Our preliminary figures are out today. They show that lottery sales in FY 2015 totaled nearly $325 million. Proceeds to state causes totaled $74.5 million, the fourth-highest amount for the lottery since its start in 1985. Prizes to players totaled nearly $197 million, the second-highest total in the lottery’s history, and nearly a $10 million increase from the previous year.
All told, sales from our core products – lotto games, scratch games and pull-tab games – totaled $324.8 million. That’s up about 3.4 percent from the previous year. In particular, sales of scratch tickets set a record this past year at nearly $212 million. The previous record for scratch sales was $202.3 million back in FY 2013.
Another important figure for us is the support we give to local businesses in the form of sales commissions for selling the lottery’s products. We’re proud to say that the total in lottery commissions to business across the state was nearly $21 million in FY 2015.
So which locations sold the most? Here are the Top 10 retailers in Iowa for lottery sales in FY 2015:
And who won the most? The biggest prize claimed by an Iowa Lottery player in FY 15 was $2 million, while three other tickets won prizes of $1 million each:
And now for the grand totals: Since the lottery’s start 30 years ago, players have won more than $3.5 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised more than $1.6 billion for the state programs that benefit us all.
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