DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa Lottery sales are up in 2015 from a year ago due primarily to the popularity of scratch tickets which rose 12 percent from the previous year setting a new sales record of $212 million, lottery officials said in the annual financial report released Thursday.
Powerball and Mega Millions ticket sales fell, a trend tied to fewer monster jackpots during the year.
The lottery reports its results on the basis of a fiscal year which begins July 1 and ends June 30.
Sales reached $325 million in fiscal year 2015, a 3.5 percent increase from the year before. It’s the third highest annual sales figure, behind 2006 and 2013 which both exceeded $339 million.
It was a year of controversy for Iowa Lottery marked by the fraud conviction of lottery vendor employee Eddie Tipton, who prosecutors say fixed a computer to pick a specific set of numbers for a December 2010 Hot Lotto game. Tipton, who plans to appeal his conviction, denies tinkering with a number-generating computer or soliciting friends to try to anonymously cash the winning ticket. No one was ever paid the jackpot because Iowa doesn’t pay jackpots to anonymous claimants.
“The case provided the lottery with the opportunity to better identify potential security risks and update its procedures to protect against them,” Iowa Lottery Board Chairman Matt McDermott, a Des Moines lawyer said in a statement.
In addition to higher scratch game sales, the Pick 3, Pick 4, Hot Lotto and other games saw increased sales while Powerball fell 14 percent to $52.2 million and Mega Millions dropped 17 percent to $18 million.
Sales in those games are closely related to the number of extremely high jackpots, Iowa Lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer said. Sales climb rapidly once jackpots begin soaring into hundreds of millions of dollars.
“If you have a particular year where there are more of those big jackpot runs, sales in that category are higher. This past year we didn’t see quite as many big jackpots,” she said.
In the past year Powerball and Mega Millions reached $250 million or higher four times. The previous year jackpots exceeded that amount, the point at which sales begin to noticeably accelerate, six times.
The largest prize won by an Iowa Lottery player during the past year was a $2 million Powerball prize won by an Osage man. Three other Iowa players won $1 million each.
A Hy-Vee grocery store in Cedar Rapids was the top lottery sales retailer selling more than $866,000 in tickets during the year. A Kum & Go convenience store in Fort Dodge was second.
The lottery says $74.5 million went to state causes including a program to help pay for community attractions, tourism destinations and to build and repair schools. The Iowa Veterans Trust Fund received $2.2 million to benefit the state’s veterans and their families.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.
