Pennsylvania Lottery racks up record year, despite covid-19

Pennsylvania Lottery on Monday reported that it hit the jackpot, with a whopping 92% increase in online play last fiscal year.

Just don’t count Allan Lydic, owner of the Greensburg Newsstand, among those thrilled about the accomplishment.

“I’m not a big fan of those, obviously,” said Lydic, whose store was closed for eight weeks this spring on Gov. Tom Wolf’s orders that nonessential businesses shut their doors to prevent the spread of covid-19.

While Lydic and owners of thousands of other small stores with lottery machines did not have a chance to sell tickets, online sales skyrocketed, according to lottery officials. Online sales totaled $731 million from July 1, 2019, to June 30 — a $350 million increase over the previous fiscal year. More than $639 million in prizes were paid out to iLottery winners.

The online lottery sales rose from a pre-covid-19 level of $57.5 million in February to $95.2 million in May, then dropped to $81.7 million in June.

Will the online lottery sales continue to rise in the new fiscal year that began July 1?

“With so many unknowns, it is hard to say what the future will bring,” said Ewa Dworakowski, a Pennsylvania Lottery spokeswoman.

The lottery, which last fiscal year generated $1.14 billion for programs benefiting senior citizens, said it sold almost $4.47 billion in its traditional games, which include scratch-off tickets. A record $3.2 billion in scratch-off games, a $213.5 million increase, were sold in the 2019-20 fiscal year.

Ticket sales for the traditional draw games, such as the Wild Ball, Treasure Hunt, Cash 5, Match 6 Lotto, Millionaire Raffle, Cash4Life, Powerball and Mega Millions, suffered as about 30% of the lottery’s 9,800 retailers were forced to close their doors this spring. Sales plunged almost $254 million for the fiscal year to $1.1 billion, an 18.6% drop, lottery officials said.

“The big driver was the lack of large jackpots in multistate games. There were several large Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots during the 2018-19 fiscal year, but that wasn’t the case last fiscal year,” Dworakowski said.

Lydic said the lack of mega jackpots probably affected his sales and, when he was able to reopen, “there were not as many people around to play.”