By Todd Northrop
In Friday's meeting of the Kentucky Lottery Corporation's board of directors, it was announced strong sales in the month of May has helped get the lottery back on track to meet budgeted sales amounts for the year.
According to Interim Chief Operating Officer Maggie Garrison, May sales were $132.1 Million, which is $33.7 Million or 31.9% more than budgeted. "This was led by increases in our Scratch-off ticket sales, which jumped 46% or $29.4 million more than expected," she said.
Total Scratch-off sales for the month were $93 Million. Garrison added the daily Pick 3 and Pick 4 draw games also saw significant increases, with Pick 3 exceeding budget by $4.7 Million (36.5%) and Pick 4 finishing the month with $1.5 Million more in sales than budgeted (38.6%).
Total iLottery sales continued to exceed prior year and budget and even increased 25% from April.
Adding to the good news, Garrison said June sales are on track to be another strong month.
"Through April our sales were $57 Million behind budget, as the initial weeks of the pandemic were experienced," said Interim President and CEO Marty Gibbs. "Opportunities for discretionary spend were limited and lottery products were available, which led to a significant rebound in May."
Gibbs said the Lottery took steps in March to suspend all product advertising and shut down Keno monitors in retailers across the Commonwealth, and that these elements had been put back into place in the last few weeks.
In other business, the board approved a two-month bridge operating budget for July and August, along with rules and regulations for six scratch-off tickets, and new or amended rules for 19 Instant Play games.
The next meeting of the Kentucky Lottery's board of directors will be Thursday August 20th. The meeting will begin at 1:00 pm EST, and will be held at the lottery's headquarters at 1011 West Main Street in Louisville. The audit committee meeting will begin at 8:00 am EST, as well as the procurement committee at 9:00 am EST.
Like I told the retired Director of the KLC and Chip Polston I'm very luck to live in a progressive lottery state. I complimented them for having on-line sales and asked the Director (names aren't my strong point) if FL, where he came from had on-line sales=NO. Said my homestate of MA doesn't either. Know I'm rehashing old stuff here, but the KLC is very diligent and happy to see they are on the rebound.
Mitch & Stack must be elated. Their State is back in the game.
Time to move to KY!
Kentucky has had it's share of interesting winners. You can read about David Lee Edwards here on the Search box. His journey began on 2001. Just before 9/11.
Congratulations to KY for making the Lottery Post opening page!
Hopefully, the Powerball and Megamillion rules go back to normal soon.
Agreed, there is a lot of genuine anger about the jackpots being lowered without an adjustment in ticket price. Many people contact us every day about it. The longer the reduced jackpot rules are in effect, the more I personally agree with that anger.
But MItch doesn't want to give out more stimulus checks and unless they do, sales will fall again. Wonder how many other states had increased sales because of the checks?
If Mitch can work he's colleagues to Give Tax cuts to the wealthy, he sure can do the right thing by coming up with another stimulus check rollout for those hit hard by the virus.
Was watching " Guess whose coming to dinner" a few weeks back & what stood out was Sidney's Mom going one on one with Tracy * l think & her saying something like " what on earth happens to peoples brains when they get old?"
* * That could be asked of Mitch & others, on both sides of the aisle.
No pick 3 straight numbers in Illinois lottery in almost a year(11 months). This is very strange.
Nobody will bet the farm on his winning his re-election bid. but it will be very hard to beat him.
"what on earth happens to peoples brains when they get old?"
Are you advocating "age limits" like when Rand Paul advocated "term limits" before winning his Senate seat two terms ago?
No, l am not advocating any such thing. Politicians like Religious figures should KNOW when to step down. Take Pope Benedict for example.
On 11 February 2013, Benedict unexpectedly announced his resignation in a speech in Latin before the cardinals, citing a "lack of strength of mind and body" due to his advanced age. His resignation became effective on 28 February 2013. He is the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415, and the first to do so on his own initiative since Celestine V in 1294.
* l wish some politicians & clergymen would do the same thing instead of hanging around till casket time.