Total Ohio state revenue for the month of July came in nearly twelve percent below the same month in 2008. Job losses continue to grow, with Ohio's unemployment rate around 11%. But Ohio Lottery sales remain the sole beacon of hope in an otherwise dismal budget picture. But the Ohio Lottery Commission report a record $2.42 billion in sales for the fiscal year that ended June 30, a number helped by revenue from the new keno game that operates in bars and taverns.
Mary Trapp of South Bloomfield, who stopped by the Marathon station on Rich Street Downtown to bought some tickets for herself and a group of friends at the Ohio PERS office said that people are still hopeful about the current situation and that they do not mind taking a chance with a dollar. Trapp's office pool usually starts playing when the jackpot gets over $100 million but Trapp said that she usually spend about $5 a week on the Mega Millions game.
The jackpot on August 18th, 2009 hit $170 million, the 4th biggest in the past twelve months. From January through July, Mega Millions sales were four percent above the same period in 2008. Overall lottery sales, which includes scratch-offs, Pick three and four and other games, are up about 4.4%. That is good news for the state budget.
Under the Ohio Constitution, lottery profits are allotted for education, though that money does not necessarily affect how much officials decide to spend on Ohio schools. About $702 million in lottery profits were directed into the state budget last year, the biggest amount since 1998 and the 4th biggest total in Ohio's lottery.
The spokesperson for the Ohio Lottery Commission, Jeannie Roberts, said that the sales were definitely helped by the keno game, which put lottery games into more than one thousand bars and taverns that had no such games before.
But keno sales badly missed predictions, bringing in about $30 million in profits instead of the estimated $73 million. Roberts said that she thinks individuals are playing less lottery games than they did before because people have less discretionary money to spend.
Sales for the Mega Millions game are driven more by the size of the jackpot than the depth of the economic recession. Roberts said that when you have a large jackpot, sales really increase. Thurber Village Market co-owner Chris Davis said that his lottery sales have jumped fifty percent this year over 2008, when the store started selling the games. Previous winning tickets decorate the sides of the counter like wallpaper.
Davis said that a lot of his patrons say that they are willing to spend an extra buck for their dream of winning millions of dollars. He added that he has noticed that a lot of people would not buy a Mega Millions ticket until the jackpot hits $100 million or more.
[07-09]
John M. Thorpe
