A dramatic increase in fourth quarter sales for the fiscal year nearly erased a deficit the private operator of the Hoosier Lottery was facing in its first year target based on revenues earned during the first three quarters according to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Sales topped $1 billion for the first time in its history, reaching $1.019 billion according to projected sales figures released by the Hoosier Lottery. That's just $36 million short of the target figure of $1.056 billion that GTECH, the private operator of the state's lottery, was required to reach in order to return a contracted amount of $256 million net revenues to the state. GTECH will return $248 million instead, a figure that's just $8 million shy of the contracted target figure. Under the terms of its contract, GTECH has to pay penalties to the state when it falls below its revenue targets.
After GTECH reported of $852.4 million through the end of the first three quarters of the fiscal year, or 3% below budget, the IBJ observed that GTECH would have to exceed budgeted sales by 14% during the last quarter in order to meet its contractual goal. GTECH's staff told Hoosier Lottery officials it was confident it would meet its contractual target because of "favorable trends" in Powerball and Mega Millions jackpot rollovers. Because numbers are supposedly randomly drawn, it's unclear how the private operator can predict jackpot rollovers. As a rule, lottery ticket sales increase as the size of jackpots grow. With more tickets being purchased, however, the odds of a winning number being picked by ticket purchasers increases.
The projected $248 million return to the state under GTECH's management is 10% larger than the $224 million lottery sales returned to the state last year under the Hoosier Lottery's management. Audited figures confirming those numbers won't be available until October. Hoosier Lottery's Executive Director Sarah Taylor applauded the "record contribution to the state of Indiana." "We now have two consecutive years of record surplus revenue to the state, and that's a win for everyone," she said.
2 comments:
Just curious, is GTECH allowed to enter the marketplace to purchase lottery tickets?
1) northstar, the private company, has NEVER fulfilled its contract in any state.
2) powerball prices were doubled from one dollar to two dollars a ticket.
3) mega millions stayed at one dollar a ticket but the jackpot odds were raised from 175 million to 258 million to one insuring more rollovers of money to the state lottery
3) how much money did the state of Indiana shell out to northstar to run its lottery? in 2012, northstar in Illinois increased sales by 100 million but Illinois reportedly paid northstar 82 million to run the Illinois lottery sales and marketing departments.
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