AUSTIN — The Texas Lottery announced that it has achieved $5.068 billion in sales for fiscal year 2016, breaking the sales record it set just last fiscal year and resulting in a total contribution of $1.392 billion to Texas, the single largest annual transfer of revenue to the state.
In celebration of the record sales and revenue, the Texas Lottery unveiled a new billboard today at an event at Texas Lottery headquarters in Austin.
"This is the first time in our history that we have generated more than $5 billion in sales and we want to thank Texas Lottery players and our more than 17,000 retailers for their outstanding support," said Gary Grief, executive director of the Texas Lottery. "We are excited to celebrate the extraordinary growth we have achieved and proud to make our largest contributions ever to both Texas public schools and veterans' programs."
This year's revenue transfer included $1.373 billion to the Foundation School Fund and $14.7 million to the Fund for Veterans' Assistance. The Texas Lottery has now contributed more than $19 billion to Texas public education and more than $66 million to Texas veterans since the dedication of such funds by the Texas Legislature.
The Beneficiaries: Texas Education and Texas Veterans
The Foundation School Fund, administered by the Texas Education Agency, funds the operational needs and special program services for Texas school districts including teacher salaries, utilities, equipment, bilingual education, special education, gifted and talented education, and career and technical education.
The Texas Veterans Commission Fund for Veterans' Assistance makes grants available to eligible charitable organizations, local government agencies, and Veterans Service Organizations that provide direct services to Texas veterans and their families. With 1.7 million veterans spread across the state, these programs provide financial assistance, transportation services, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder counseling and housing assistance.
Strong Scratch Ticket Sales
Scratch ticket sales for FY 16 totaled $3.72 billion, the highest scratch ticket sales in Texas Lottery history.
"Our growth can be primarily attributed to two factors, another year of strong sales across our entire scratch ticket game portfolio, which accounted for 73 percent of our total sales, and the record $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot that occurred in January," said Grief.
In addition to record-breaking sales, the Texas Lottery's careful spending kept administrative costs to just 4.4 percent of FY 16 sales, one of the lowest administrative expenditure rates in the country.
"Our continued success is partially attributed to the cost containment measures taken in our administrative budget," said Grief. "Any unspent administrative funds are returned directly to the Foundation School Fund."
Texas Lottery players and retailers also had a great year. Players collected $3.27 billion in prizes, the highest amount of prizes paid out in Texas Lottery history. For the Lottery's retailers that sell lottery tickets across the state, commissions, bonuses and incentives amounted to $273.3 million, the highest amount paid to retailers in Texas Lottery history.
"The Lottery continues to do an outstanding job managing and maintaining a broad portfolio of scratch and draw games with the highest integrity," said J. Winston Krause, chairman of the Texas Lottery Commission. "I am very proud of the significant support we have provided to Texas education and veterans."
FY 16 by the Numbers
- $5 billion in annual sales is greater than the annual sales for many well-known brands including Tesla Motors, Yahoo, Levi Strauss, Hyatt Hotels, Molson Coors Brewing and Tiffany.
- The Texas Lottery's $537.8 million increase alone from FY 15 to FY 16 is more than the total annual sales amounts for 20 other individual state lotteries.
- This is the 13th consecutive year that the Texas Lottery generated more than $1 billion in revenue for Texas.
- The Texas Lottery introduces approximately 90 scratch tickets every year.
- $1 billion could fund 19,000 teacher salaries or 22 million 5th -grade digital textbooks or 9,000 new school buses or 700,000 student computers or quality after-school programs for 500,000 students.
- 97 percent of Texas Lottery sales are returned to the state in the form of contributions to the Foundation School Fund, the Fund for Veterans' Assistance and other state programs, and through prizes and retailer commissions, bonuses and incentives.
About the Texas Lottery
Beginning with the first ticket sold in 1992, the Texas Lottery has generated $25 billion in revenue for the state and distributed $50 billion in prizes to lottery players. Since 1997, the Texas Lottery has contributed $19 billion to the Foundation School Fund, which supports public education in Texas. As authorized by the Texas Legislature, certain Texas Lottery revenues benefit state programs including the Fund for Veterans' Assistance. Since the first veterans' themed scratch ticket game was launched in 2009, the Texas Lottery has contributed more than $66 million for programs supporting Texas veterans.
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$1.37B vs. $14.7M?!?! You'd think they could carve out just a little bit bigger piece of the pie for vets... Sheesh!!
Kids & Vets- a winning combination. The minute you start talking about the lottery proceeds flowing into the General fund...
I agree, I'd rather see a bigger chunk go to benefit veterans. The Texas state government controls how the lottery money is allocated.
You have to wonder if the folks buying those worthless scratch tickets really believe they are helping the kids get something extra. Every lotto dollar deposited in the Foundation bank frees up a dollar the politicians can use for other stuff, like paying high fees to lawyers fighting losing battles with the federal government or putting another state police Trooper at a highway intersection near the border with Mexico.
Californians were pretty skeptical about that as well bobby, the " helping the kids" part. But it was made clear to the voters when this was put on the ballot that the lottery would "supplement" the education budget.
That is an amazing figure ($5 billion in sales) considering we have a few LP members believing the Texas pick-3 and pick-4 games are rigged because of test drawings.
Not too long ago I remember some idiot politician in that state wanted to eliminate the lottery altogether.
Actually there are several in the legislature that wanted to end it. There have always been some in our legislature that are against a lottery. They almost did it a couple years ago, then realized how much money it was generating and backtracked.
Even though they know the state is losing money to OK and LA casinos, there will never be casinos in Texas.
Same thing here for casinos; most neighboring states to KY have casinos. Horse folks have tried to get casinos or racinos here as they are hurting...even Churchill Downs. Falls on deaf ears everytime. I'm surprised they have a lottery here and when on-line purchases suddenly appeared it was almost disbelief!
I wonder if they will up the lower tier prizes?
I doubt it but they should.
They sure have got a lot of my money. Good Job Texas.