As reported by online news provider NJ Spotlight, the New Jersey Lottery has seen a slump in its sales figures, with the lottery citing the COVID-19 outbreak in the US as a main contributing factor.
The report stated how initial estimates of the last full year of lottery receipts fell short of the total for the same 12-month period last year with the decrease coming despite an uptake in sales of lottery tickets and games taking place over the last few months. The gap in the lottery revenues is, however, expected to shorten following further assessment in the next few days.
Revenues from the lottery help fund public-worker pension benefits. Consequently, any shortfall between what was initially budgeted for and what has been recorded is set to be made up with cash from the budget as the $74bn pension system continues to struggle following the COVID-caused economic downturn.
The COVID-19 lockdown period has seen year-over-year monthly lottery revenues decline by roughly 30% in March, and then by 25% in April as stay-at-home orders went into effect across the state.
More positively, May and June saw something of an improvement as year-over-year monthly revenue misses reduced to 5%, and less than 1%, respectively.
Despite this late recovery, the 12 months that ended on June 30 saw initial revenue figures reveal that lottery proceeds totaled $937m – a near 12% loss when compared to the same 12-month period last year.
The report continued to state how Assistant Treasurer Dini Ajmani told members of New Jersey’s State Investment Council that the $937m collected through the end of June was “far short” of the more than $1bn that was budgeted for contribution to the pension fund.
With the state having paid its latest quarterly pension contribution earlier this month following a short delay, Ajmani also revealed how another payment could be produced later in the year: “If all goes well, in October 2020, there will be (another) quarterly payment into the pension fund.”
Overall, the pension system has seen a drop in value to just over $74bn at the end of May from roughly $80bn before the spread of the pandemic.