Kentucky Lottery has record sales over six months

Feb 3, 2004, 5:26 am (Post a comment)

Kentucky Lottery

Tennessee start-up clouds forecast for full fiscal year

Two large Powerball jackpots and some high-priced scratch-off games helped the Kentucky Lottery post record sales for the first half of the fiscal year.

But a possible dip in sales because of a new lottery in Tennessee makes a full fiscal-year forecast difficult, lottery officials said.

Through Dec. 31, the lottery board paid the state about $90.million in dividends, compared with about $85.million for the first six months of fiscal 2002-03.

The lottery had total ticket sales of $378.million between July 1 and Dec. 31, an increase of 10.7 percent over the year-ago period.

Bob Little, the lottery's vice president of sales, said yesterday that brisk ticket-buying when Powerball jackpots were especially high was a primary reason for the record half-year sales. The multistate game's jackpot was hit at $190.million on Oct. 25 and at $221.million on Dec. 31.

Little said ticket sales for $20, $10 and $5 scratch-off games also were strong, and he said sales for Pick 3 and Pick 4 games continue to grow steadily.

Lottery sales set a fiscal-year record of $673.million in 2002-03. But officials were reluctant yesterday to make a full-year ticket-sales projection, citing uncertainty over the impact of the Tennessee lottery, which started last month.

About 11 percent of Kentucky Lottery tickets, or about $70.million a year, typically have been purchased by Tennessee residents.

Kentucky Lottery spokesman Chip Polston said yesterday that officials expect those sales to erode gradually over the next two or three years, as Tennessee expands its lottery products. It has started with only scratch-off tickets but is expected to add Pick 3 and Pick 4 games this spring and dventually to add an online and a multistate game, Polston said.

Howard Kline, Kentucky Lottery's senior vice president of finance, said state officials hope to keep at least some Tennessee players because the payouts for some games will be higher in Kentucky than in Tennessee. Kentucky's top Pick 3 payout, for instance, is $600, while Tennessee plans to have a top Pick 3 prize of $500, Kline said.

Lottery President Arch Gleason said plans to try to keep some of the Tennessee market include player-appreciation dvents at retail outlets along the border in Southern Kentucky and advertising and promotions to let Tennessee players know about Tennessee residents who have won large prizes in Kentucky.

Gleason said Kentucky officials are confident that their lottery games will be attractive to Tennessee residents, at least until Tennessee builds up its inventory of games. "Whether (Tennessee) players continue to come across the border to buy our tickets is the question," he said.

Kline acknowledged that casino riverboats operated by Indiana and Illinois continue to cut into lottery revenues, especially in Western Kentucky. He said lottery officials never have been able to quantify the loss related to the riverboats, but the growth in ticket sales in counties near casinos has not been as great as those in other parts of Kentucky.

"We have to believe the riverboats are hurting us," Kline said.

The Kentucky Lottery returns about 60 percent of its ticket-sale revenues to players in prizes.

Of the money that is paid to the state, about 80 percent is put into college-scholarship funds, with the rest going into the General Fund. Next fiscal year, 90 percent will go for scholarship aid, and 100 percent will be devoted to scholarships starting in 2005-06, under current state law.

In April the Kentucky Lottery will celebrate its 15th anniversary.

Courier-Journal

Tags for this story

Other popular tags

Comments

Nobody has commented on this story yet.

Subscribe to this news story
Guest