Florida Lottery surges to new sales record with scratch-offs leading the way

The urge for the instant gratification of Florida’s lucky number and scratch-off games continues to grow.

The Florida Lottery announced sales reached $5.58 billion in the fiscal year that concluded on Tuesday, the fourth consecutive year of record sales.

“We’re on our way to $6 [billion],” said Lottery Secretary Cynthia O’Connell.

Annual lottery sales cracked the $5 billion mark for the first time just two years ago, and a year ago hit $5.36 billion.

O’Connell credited much of the increase on scratch-off ticket sales, which have grown 60 percent in the past four years and now account for 67 percent of the lottery sales.

“They offer the opportunity to win instantly and instant gratification, but also they’re fun,” O’Connell said. “You scratch off a ticket right there and you know you’re a winner, and our players enjoy that.”

While about 60 percent of the money played on games is paid out to winners, about $1.5 billion will go to the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund this year. The fund provides money for a variety of education programs, from class-size reduction in public schools to scholarships for higher education.

The state hasn’t made any dramatic changes to its gaming lineup since Mega Millions was added in 2013.

O’Connell said in the next year there may some minor changes to the scratch-off games and to Powerball, a national lucky-number game that Florida is involved in along with 43 other states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The voter-approved Lottery has grown from $1.8 billion in sales in 1989, its first full year.

The nearly 60 different scratch-off games, which range in price from $1 to $25, generated $3.7 billion in sales in the past year, up from $3.4 billion a year earlier.

Powerball continues to be the top terminal game in Florida, with $375 million in sales. The next most popular is Cash 3 at $363 million in sales, followed by Florida Lotto at $301 million, Play 4 at $276 million, and Fantasy 5, which attracted $257 million in sales. Mega Million created $147.4 million in sales in Florida.

Florida Lottery shatters all records nationwide to achieve the best scratch-off sales week in history

Contributes $23 million to education in one week

TALLAHASSEE- The Everglade State Lottery announces that last week it shattered all previous single-week Scratch-Off sales records nationwide, with $123,841,686 in Scratch sales. It additionally had its best overall sales week of the year, with $167,620,057 in total sales.

The Everglade State Lottery's new $30 one hundred X THE money Scratch-Off game alone recorded $34,279,230 in sales for the week; leading to total Scratch-Off sales surpassing tthe Lottery's previous weekly sales record, set in 2017, by quite $18 million or seventeen p.c. quite $23.5 million in prizes for the sport were additionally claimed last week. This ranks because the 2dhighest sales week by any Lottery for a Scratch game. Massachusetts holds this record at $34,378,500, set in 2002.

With higher sales, return higher prize payouts for Lottery winners, accrued retail merchant commissions and most significantlyadditional funding to boost education. Last week's total sales generated around $40 million for the academic improvementfund (EETF).

"Breaking sales records like this is often a major action," aforesaid Everglade State Lottery Secretary Jim Poppell. ?The Everglade State Lottery is proud to be able to produce countless winners, partner with thousands of outlets broad, several of whom area unit tiny business homeowners, and supply a reliable supply of funding for Florida's students and faculties.?

Scratch-Off games area unit a crucial a part of the Lottery's portfolio of games, comprising around sixty eight p.c of price ticketsales and generating quite $784 million for the academic improvement fund (EETF) in year 2016-17.

ABOUT POWERBALL IN FLORIDA

Since change of integrity POWERBALL in 2009, the sport has generated $1.78 billion in contributions to education wide . Sunshine State is among the top-selling POWERBALL states within the country, with quite eighty one.1 million winning tickets totaling quite$2.3 billion in prizes, as well as twelve jackpot winners. Sunshine State was conjointly one amongst the 3 states across the nationto own a winner share within the world record-setting $1.586 billion POWERBALL jackpot in January 2016.

The next POWERBALL drawing are command Wed, March 7, at 10:59 p.m. ET, tickets should be purchased by 10:00 p.m. ET to be eligible for this drawing. National POWERBALL drawings square measure broadcast live, in high-definition, from the Sunshine StateLottery's state of the art draw studio in state capital.

ABOUT MEGA MILLIONS IN FLORIDA

Since change of integrity MEGA MILLIONS in 2013, the sport has generated over $337 million for education, and has awarded over$583.2 million in prizes to thirty-nine.4 million players.

The next MEGA MILLIONS drawing are going to be command tomorrow, March 6, at 11:00 p.m. ET, tickets should be purchased by 10:00 p.m. ET to be eligible for this drawing. MEGA MILLIONS drawings ar broadcast on seventeen carrier stations throughout the state. Drawings are on the market for viewing on the Everglade State Lottery web site and our official YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/floridalottery. Winning numbers ar on the market on the Lottery web site, at retailers wide and by phone at (850) 921-PLAY.

ABOUT THE FLORIDA LOTTERY

The Sunshine State Lottery is accountable for tributary quite $32 billion to education and causation quite 775,000 students to varsity through the brilliant Futures Scholarship Program. The Sunshine State Lottery reinvests ninety eight p.c of its revenue back to Florida's economy through prize payouts, commissions to quite thirteen,000 Sunshine State retailers and contributions to education. Since 1988, Sunshine State Lottery games have paid quite $56.3 billion in prizes and created quite two,000 individualsmillionaires. For additional data, please visit World Wide Web.flalottery.com.