On January 6th, 2009, the Missouri Lottery sales have surpassed the $1 billion mark for the first time in history. The lottery officials this week reported 2008 sales of $1,001,832,449, surpassing the 2007 mark of $963.5 million.
Among the lottery's ten gaming formats, sales were up in five games and down in five others. The sales of scratch-off tickets represented almost 2/3 of all lottery revenues, with a total sales reported up 7.8% over 2007 to a total of $659.1 million. Club Keno total was up by 9.4% to $59.6 million. The sales in multi-state Powerball, the lottery's 2nd most popular game, slide down by 6.2% to $127.3 million. Through the month of November, the Missouri Lottery had transferred a total of $129 million in profits to the Missouri state education budget.
Since the Missouri Lottery started twenty-three years ago, it has produced more than $3.3 billion for different state programs like public education. The Missouri Lottery had given back 63.7% of all sales dollars as prizes to the players. That was the 3rd biggest return rate in the United States among the nation's 44 lottery jurisdictions that averaged a 60.2% return rate to players. Massachusetts led all the states in the U.S. with a 72.7% return that year, followed by Oregon at 65.9%. Kansas was ranked No.36 at 55.9% that year.
[05-02]
John Sullivan
