The North Dakota Lottery was approaching $1 million in sales through two weeks of play, lottery officials said Thursday.
In the first 14 days North Dakota had member status in the Multi-State Lottery Association's Powerball game, players in the state placed $946,674 in bets, according to lottery spokeswoman Liz Brocker.
That would put the state on pace for $24.6 million in lottery sales annually. And that's without the introduction of two additional games, Hot Lotto and Wild Card Two, which come on line in June.
If that pace were to be maintained, state lottery players would easily top projections from the North Dakota Attorney General's office, which advised the Legislature that $11 million in lottery sales could be expected through June 30, 1995, or the end of the current biennium.
Through the first four Powerball draws the state has participated in, North Dakota had neither a jackpot nor a $100,000 winner, Brocker said.
Through those four drawings, 20,083 winning tickets, with a total value of $139,178, were sold in North Dakota, Brocker said. Because no one correctly matched all six numbers in Wednesday's national drawing, in which North Dakota, 26 other states, the District of Columbia and Virgin Islands participate, the jackpot will grow to an estimated $57 million for Saturday's draw.
Bigger jackpots tend to increase lottery ticket sales, according to retailers.
Kyle Anderson, operations coordinator for Stop-N-Go of Fargo, said sales have been strongest at stores outside metropolitan Fargo-Moorhead.
"Jamestown, Valley City, Wahpeton, Carrington and Hillsboro are all doing better than our in-town stores," Anderson said. He surmised that local lottery players haven't been as excited about the North Dakota game since they've already been playing the same game in Minnesota.
Lottery sales in the company's eight Minnesota stores, he said, haven't dropped off. Scratch tickets, not offered in North Dakota, are big sellers for Minnesota retail outlets.
Retailers get 5 percent of proceeds from lottery ticket sales.
Jason Bossert, manager of Sunmart grocery in West Fargo, said plenty of shoppers are buying lottery tickets, but having the game hasn't brought in more customers. Neither, he said, have traffic counts fallen off in Moorhead, now that North Dakotans don't have to leave their state for a lottery ticket.
"We have such a high volume of traffic at our stores that a couple of hundred people either way doesn't make much of a difference," Bossert said.
"I think it's been fun, well-received by people in North Dakota," Bossert added of the lottery. "You see people with smiles on their faces when their trying for a winner. But I don't think anybody thinks they're going to get rich."
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