The Pennsylvania Lottery continues to break its own records as it reports $1.3 billion in profits in the 2020-2021 fiscal year, just ahead of the new Powerball lottery expansion.
This report comes as no surprise, as this is the 10th consecutive year that the Pennsylvania Lottery has reported more than $1 billion in profits, with the money going entirely toward senior programs in the state.
This year’s profit sets the new state record and is a result of more than $5.3 billion in sales, which occurred across popular draw games like Powerball and Mega Millions, as well as scratch-off cards.
Back in May 2018, the Pennsylvania Lottery launched its online games, and this fiscal year it also set a new record in this area, with $887 million in online sales.
“We are extremely proud that we kept funds flowing to programs that benefit older Pennsylvanians during a year when many sorely needed this assistance,” said Pennsylvania Lottery Executive Director Drew Svitko. “Our team is very passionate about our mission of responsibly generating funds for our commonwealth’s older residents. We are hard at work to make sure that we keep this momentum going and build on this success.”
Profits Came from Variety of Sources
The $1.3 billion profit the Lottery made in the 2020-2021 fiscal year came from a number of sources.
The biggest revenue source was from the sale of scratch-off games, which hit a record of more than $3.7 billion, up $554.6 million (17%) from the previous fiscal year. The previous record was more than $3.2 billion, a mark set in the 2019-2020 fiscal year. The Lottery said scratch-offs account for more than 70% of total traditional sales.
Sales from draw games totaled more than $1.3 billion, a $235.9 million (21%) increase from the previous fiscal year. Draw games in the state include the PICK family of games as well as Wild Ball, Treasure Hunt, Cash 5 with Quick Cash, Match 6 Lotto, Millionaire Raffle, Cash4Life, Powerball and Mega Millions.
The Lottery said several large Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots also helped drive sales, including a record $516 Mega Millions winning ticket sold in Bucks County on May 21.
Online sales numbers totaled at $887 million, an increase of $155.7 million from the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
The Lottery also announced that:
- Sales from monitor games, which include Keno and Xpress Sports games, totaled an estimated $54.9 million this fiscal year, an increase of more than $1.2 million (2%) from the previous fiscal year;
- Traditional game prizes paid to winners grew to a record of more than $3.5 billion, up nearly $612.4 million, with 97 winning tickets of $1 million or more paid to players during the 2020-2021 fiscal year; and
- More than $772.1 million in prizes were paid out to winners of online Lottery games, an increase of $135 million from the prior fiscal year. The figure does not include prizes paid to winners who purchased draw games online.
According to the Lottery, more than 9,600 retail locations in the state were involved in the sales, collectively earning $329.1 million in commissions, up $71.6 million from the previous fiscal year. Many of the retail locations are small family-owned businesses.
More Opportunity for Powerball Players in Pennsylvania
The country’s biggest Lottery game, Powerball, will launch a brand new weekly drawing on Monday nights. It will be available to residents of Pennsylvania on August 23.
The new draw will add to the already existing Wednesday and Saturday draws and a brand new add-on game will be added to spice things up even more.
With the Double Play option, players who purchase lottery tickets will be able to join a separate draw with a top prize of up to $10 million, on top of the regular Powerball draw.
The new Powerball drawing on Monday evenings will be live streamed via Powerball.com and on local television stations that already air other Powerball drawings. Double Play will also be live streamed.
