The Kentucky Lottery has never been bigger... or more profitable.
More local retailers are using it to supplement their profits. More players are chasing the dreams of a millionaire's jackpot. And state government is putting record profits to use funding more and more educational grants and scholarships.
But competition on the horizon could halt the growth of the 14-year-old venture.
The figures for fiscal year 2003 released by the Kentucky Lottery Corp. earlier this month tell the story of the record period -- $42 million in profits to retailers, $402 in prizes paid to players statewide and a record $180.8 million in profits for the commonwealth. In fact, since the first ticket was sold in April 1989, the lottery has awarded over $4 billion in prizes and earned the state over $1.9 billion. Since 1998, 364,000 Kentuckians have attended college on lottery-funded grants and scholarships.
And retailers in Pennyrile-area counties contributed $27.8 million in sales -- Christian, $24.7 million; Todd, $9.6 million; Trigg, $1.9; and Caldwell, $1.6 million -- to the state total of $671.5 million in 2003.
"It's huge here," said shift supervisor Anna Jimenez at Chevron Fuel Express in Oak Grove. Jimenez estimates the convenience store/truck stop on Fort Campbell Boulevard sells over $1,500 in tickets each day, with the heaviest sales coming on Wednesday and Saturday when the Powerball drawings are held.
But this year's record earnings for the state may soon feel the pinch of direct competition when Tennessee's lottery goes online early next year.
In Guthrie, where Tennesseans flock across the border to play Kentucky's lottery, it could become difficult for stores heavily dependent on the lottery to compete at the same level when the first tickets become available in the Volunteer State.
"It really won't have that much of an impact here," said Seth Jackson, manager of the Piggly Wiggly just around the corner from two stores carrying the namesake of the game that sometimes have players lined up in their cars for nearly a mile to buy tickets. "I would have to say it will almost definitely hurt them."
The managers of those lottery stores, Lotto Xpress and Favourite Lotto, were unavailable for comment.
Jimenez said the new lottery across the border will certainly have an impact on here store's sales, half of which she estimates come from Tennessee and Fort Campbell ticket buyers.
"It won't have too big of an effect, but it will have some, for sure," she said.
Elsewhere in Christian County, where almost $15.3 million in prizes was awarded last year, lottery retailers are not too concerned with losing players to Tennessee.
"We very seldom have any Tennessee people," said Mike Cannon, owner and operator of Square Deal Market on Newstead Road. "And there's no guarantee Tennessee will have the Powerball, so we could still get those players."
Cannon, who provides lottery sales primarily as a service to regular customers, said he is not getting rich from selling tickets at his small convenience store, but he often draws a number of people who would not normally take a dollar gamble until the jackpots swell.
"We do OK," he said his of daily sales. "But we get a lot of people who have the mentality that $10 or $20 million just isn't enough that will buy a ticket when the jackpot grows."
Regardless of the effect Tennessee's game will have on Kentucky, education stands to continue reaping more from the lottery in coming years. Beginning in 2005, 100 percent of lottery revenue will go to fund post-secondary grants and scholarships. Currently, only 80 percent of the profits go toward that end.
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