Loto-Quebec has published its financial results for the first quarter of the 2022-23 fiscal year, revealing its lottery revenues have fallen by $19.2m.
This represents a 7% decline from the same period last year, with its lottery sector reporting revenues of $256.6m between April 1 and June 27, 2022.
According to Loto-Quebec, this has mainly arisen due to a drop in sales of Lotto Max, which had an ‘exceptional’ run during the first quarter of last year.
However, on a more positive note, revenues from online lottery sales accounted for 12.6% of its total lottery revenues, compared to 3.1% for the first quarter of 2019–2020.
According to Loto-Quebec, this rise is due to the ‘continuous improvements’ it has made to the website.
Revenues generated by video lottery terminals in bars were also comparable to their pre-pandemic levels.
Putting the lottery sector to one side, Q1 was generally a positive period for Loto-Quebec as it generated total revenues of $744.3m and consolidated net income of $446.6m.
This represents an increase of $343m (85%) and $250.8m (128.1%) respectively, compared to the first quarter last year, when a number of the corporation’s operations were suspended.
Across the entire 2021-22 fiscal year, Loto-Québec posted total revenues of $2.22bn.
Jean–François Bergeron, President and CEO, commented: “We’re pleased with our first-quarter results. We’ve exceeded our pre-pandemic levels and are in an excellent position due to tight spending controls, which can be challenging in times of high inflation such as these. These achievements are a result of the remarkable work put in by all our teams.
“With these strong financial results, we’re on track to meet our budget target, even though draw-based lottery ticket sales were suspended last week. That said, we’d like to thank the teams who worked so hard to resolve the issues we were experiencing.
“We launched a new phase of our 100% legal campaign to remind people that lotoquebec.com is the only legal casino and sports betting website in Québec. This campaign is part of our brand repositioning strategy and our effort to cement our place in the industry. It also highlights our integrity and our responsible gambling practices, which are a great source of pride for us.”
Meanwhile, Quebec has gained 19 new millionaires since the beginning of the fiscal year, owing to 30 lottery prizes of $1m or more having been won in the province.
