S.C. Lottery marks 3rd anniversary

Jan 11, 2005, 9:51 am (1 comment)

South Carolina Lottery

$2.4 billion in sales have generated $713 million for education

The South Carolina Education Lottery marked its third anniversary last week.

Since the lottery's creation, total ticket sales have exceeded $2.4 billion, and players have won more than $1.4 billion. State income tax collected on winnings over $500 totaled more than $18 million.

In addition, the lottery has transferred more than $713 million to the Education Lottery Account for appropriation by the state legislature.

"To put a face on our state's lottery, I think of over 300,000 lottery scholarships, millions of dollars to fund research at Clemson, USC and MUSC, $276 million for the public schools and millions more for our county libraries; this is the heart of what we do at SCEL," said lottery Executive Director Ernie Passailaigue.

K-12 programs have received more than $266.7 million in appropriations from lottery money. More than $534 million has gone to higher education and more than $8.2 million to public libraries.

Next month, the lottery plans to introduce a new five-digit game, Palmetto Cash 5, that allows players to win up to $500,000.

Lottery officials say they expect to transfer their one billionth dollar for education sometime during fiscal year 2006.

AP

Tags for this story

Other popular tags

Comments

CASH Only

Supposedly SC soon will sell Lotto South...

End of comments
Subscribe to this news story
Guest