The Illinois Lottery has published its annual wagering report, revealing it has broken its total sales record as users played the lottery during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
As reported by the Chicago Tribune, record-breaking sales took the lottery’s total revenue tally to $1.36bn for the period ending June 30, up 11% from the previous fiscal year.
Lottery sales for the period surged 22% to $3.4bn, the highest total since the Illinois Lottery began operations. This is a $600m improvement from FY2020, attributed to a meteoric rise in instant games sales, which accounted for two-thirds of total lottery sales.
As per Illinois state law, the lottery must transfer a large proportion of its revenue to the state to go towards good causes. This year, $786m in tax revenue was transferred to the state, over half of the total revenue. The majority of this fund will go towards Illinois’ Common School Fund.
“It was a very good comeback year for the lottery,” said Eric Noggle, a senior analyst with the state’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability who co-authored the report.
Whilst lottery sales have increased, contributing to the record sales, the lottery’s casino operations have been much slower to return to pre-pandemic levels.
Before the pandemic, casino sales were already in stagnation, declining gradually from 2007 until 2019. FY2020’s casino sales tanked 30% on the previous year due to the lockdowns. Despite the state’s 10 casinos being open since June 2020, albeit closing again in November 2020, casino sales fell 4.4% year-on-year to $897m.