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New Ireland Lottery operator expected to raise pricesNews Story
Ireland's National Lottery is expected to raise ticket prices next year as part of a shake-up of the business aimed at halting several years of declining sales. The new operator, Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI), is under pressure to recoup its 405 million outlay for the licence and is known to have set ambitious growth targets for its 20-year tenure in charge. While higher ticket prices would, in theory, generate bigger jackpots and potentially more publicity around its weekly draws, the m
Dec 16, 2014, 9:00 am - Lottery News

Illinois Lottery cuts ties with private managerNews Story
The split between the Illinois Lottery and its private manager, Northstar Lottery Group, is now official after three years of acrimony over lower-than-expected revenues. The termination agreement, signed Tuesday by Gov. Pat Quinn, comes a little more than three months after he directed lottery officials to sever ties with the company after it fell short of promised revenues for the third consecutive year. At the time, the company had posted record profits to the state, but those figures st
Dec 10, 2014, 9:11 pm - Lottery News

NJ lottery winners still receiving welfare, food stamps, audit saysNews Story
An audit sniffing out fraud in New Jersey's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program detected 66 lottery winners who were perhaps too lucky. They were all welfare and food stamps beneficiaries who had each won more than $10,000, including one person who had been collecting $1,000 a week from the Win for Life scratch-off game prior to 2009. Ten other winners netted more than $100,000 in lottery proceeds from 2011 to 2013. All of them were still collecting food stamps this year, according to t
Dec 6, 2014, 2:52 pm - Lottery News

Pennsylvania House passes bill giving Lottery odds and prize flexibilityNews Story
The Pennsylvania House has voted 195-1 to send to Gov. Tom Corbett a bill that Pennsylvania Lottery officials say will give them more flexibility in setting player odds and prizes, increasing sales in the long run. But that flexibility is paired in the bill with a new requirement that the General Assembly have final approval over any Lottery plans to add new game categories like Keno or Internet-based games. The latter clause, added by the state Senate earlier this fall, was a response to
Oct 22, 2014, 8:09 am - Lottery News

Casinos no death knell for lotteriesNews Story
Casino opponents are forecasting a doomsday for the Massachusetts State Lottery if casinos are allowed to open in the state, but their predictions are not supported by the results in other large states that have introduced casinos into mature lottery markets, according to specialists and local media analysis. Citing a study written by a Massachusetts lawmaker in 2008, casino opponents issued a news release Oct. 8 predicting that lottery revenue would plummet by more than 20 percent, leading t
Oct 22, 2014, 7:36 am - Lottery News

Arkansas Lottery marks 5th anniversaryNews Story
With over 150,000 Arkansas students awarded almost half a billion dollars in lottery-funded Academic Challenge Scholarships, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery is celebrating five full years of big wins and big opportunities as an engine for higher education and an educated, higher-earning workforce. Before that first ticket was bought at 12:01 a.m. on September 28, 2009, we could only guess at what this lottery could do for our state, Arkansas Scholarship Lottery Director Bishop Woosley said.
Oct 7, 2014, 9:25 am - Lottery News

Governor revamps Missouri Lottery CommissionNews Story
Gov. Jay Nixon replaced most of the members of the Missouri Lottery Commission on Thursday as he released a report recommending the agency review its policies on prizes and advertising in a quest to route more money to education. The shake-up in oversight at the Missouri Lottery comes after it posted record sales during the past budget year yet transferred less money to education than it had in the previous year. Nixon in July had directed his state budget office to review the lottery's op
Sep 19, 2014, 8:21 am - Lottery News

Arkansas Lottery recoups $1M in unpaid taxes, child supportNews Story
In its five years of operation, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery has raised nearly a half-billion dollars in scholarships to help 135,000 Arkansas students attend in-state public and private colleges and universities. But thanks to an often-forgotten provision of the Arkansas Code, the Lottery has also benefited state operations by recouping nearly $1 million in unpaid taxes and child support payments. The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery Act of 2009 requires the Lottery to cooperate in identifyi
Sep 3, 2014, 8:37 am - Lottery News

Travel by Missouri Lottery employees under scrutinyNews Story
Nine Missouri Lottery employees took a state-paid trip to Orlando, Fla., in July 2012 to attend a professional development seminar. It wasn't the only time lottery employees traveled to the Sunshine State. During the last three years, officials have logged a total of 20 trips to central Florida. Other popular destinations included New York, San Diego, Chicago, Washington, Atlanta, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Providence, R.I. The out-of-state travel which has cost the lottery $129,881 and a
Sep 2, 2014, 8:48 am - Lottery News

Kentucky Lottery finally able to advertise where the money goesNews Story
Required change in state law Includes video report For the first time in its 25 year history, the Kentucky Lottery is advertising where proceeds from the sale of its games are spent. This has never happened before because, until recently, it would've been against the law. When the state's General Assembly put together the governing legislation for the Kentucky Lottery back in 1989, a floor amendment was passed which stated, ...government programs and services shall not be mention
Aug 27, 2014, 9:02 am - Lottery News