The Kentucky Lottery has announced that its sales and net income for the 2022 fiscal year are on track to exceed its original expectations.
Vice President and Corporate Controller Maggie Garrison declared that overall sales for the Bluegrass State lottery during the first two months of its FY2022 (July and August) totalled $269.5m, $29.7m (12.4%) more than last year, and $8.8m (3.4%) more than budgeted.
President and CEO Mary Harville covered what led to such strong sales during the period, noting scratch-off sales were $9.8m, 6.6% higher year-over-year, while Lucky For Life sales saw a 43.6% jump to $1.9m as drawings for the games moved to seven days a week.
Harville added: “We’ve also seen a solid increase in Powerball and Mega Millions sales for the period. Powerball sales were up 25.7% and Mega Millions sales rose 29.8%.” Both games had solid jackpot rolls – the Mega Millions jackpot reached $432m while the Powerball continues to roll with an estimated $545m jackpot.
Net income was $54.6m, $981,000 (1.8%) more than the prior year and $43,000 (0.1%) more than budgeted. Garrison said prize expense for the year is higher than budgeted due to prize payments to players of the daily Pick 3 and Pick 4 draw games being ‘higher-than-anticipated’.
She commented: “Players won more prizes than were expected due to frequently played number sequences such as 8-8-8 and 2-0-2-0 being drawn in those games. Pick 3 is budgeted to pay 60% in sales back in the form of prizes, but year-to-date that number is at 62.4%. For the Pick 4 game, budgeted prizes are 50% of sales, but the game has paid 61.6% in prizes for the year so far.
“The higher prize expense was offset by operating expenses coming in lower than had been budgeted at only 2% of overall sales.”
The lottery’s board also approved rules and regulations for six scratch-off tickets and new or amended rules and regulations for five instant play games.
Last month, the Kentucky Lottery partnered with Scientific Games to implement SG’s customer relationship management and other related marketing systems.