CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The West Virginia Lottery ended the just-completed budget year with an $81 million surplus, giving state revenues a surprising boost, but agency officials say the future remains challenging at best in the face of increasing competition from border states.
The stronger-than-expected results also remain below the lottery's peak returns during the past decade, suggesting its best years may be behind it because of these market forces.
"We view this as uncharted territory," said James Toney, the lottery's chief financial officer. "No state lottery has gone through this particular type of competition before. We're gauging these things as we're moving through the environment."
Lottery sales topped $1.45 billion for the year that ended June 30, a better showing than either of the two previous fiscal years. Officials had forecast $1.32 billion, or a nearly 5 percent decline from the prior year.
Lottery Director John Musgrave expects $81 million in surplus revenue once proceeds satisfy their obligations for the year. The state budget for the just-completed year included $521.5 million in spending backed by lottery dollars. These revenues fund the PROMISE college scholarship program and other areas of education, as well as programs meant to help seniors and tourism.
The lottery has become a vital revenue source for state government, supplying more than $6 billion over the past 10 years. It has also provided $221 million to county and local governments during that time, including an estimated $22 million during the just-completed budget year.
West Virginia's lottery hasn't been limited to scratch-off tickets and games like Powerball and Mega Millions since the early 1990s. These more traditional offerings accounted for $201 million of the year's sales. The largest share, nearly $765 million, came from the nearly 9,000 video slot- and poker-style machines hosted by the state's four racetracks.
These machines reversed several years of declines. They were also expected to bring in only $712 million for the year, largely because of neighboring competition. A majority of the state's racetrack gamblers hail from other states. But neighboring Pennsylvania, Maryland and most recently Ohio have all opened their own gambling venues over the past decade. Two of West Virginia's tracks are located in the Northern Panhandle. A third and largest in terms of revenues, Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races, is in the Eastern Panhandle.
Both Musgrave and Toney cited the pacing of Ohio's emerging network of four casinos. Two opened in Cleveland and Toledo in May, with the others slated for Cincinnati and Columbus. A racetrack outside Columbus, meanwhile, added 1,800 video slot machines last month.
"We had anticipated that the competition from Ohio would have accelerated and come on board in December. It did not start until June," Toney said.
Musgrave said West Virginia's tracks also benefited from the mild winter. The fragile recovery may have played a role as well.
"We noticed that at some of our facilities, we had the same number of individuals as we had previously, but they were spending less money," Musgrave said of operations during the past several years. "Overall, the gaming industry nationwide was up about 6 percent."
But with the Ohio casinos opening their doors and the Scioto Downs track offering video lottery, West Virginia officials estimate that in-state sales will drop to $1.13 billion during the year that began July 1, a 14 percent decline from the prior year's forecast.
"We still expect next year to have severe competition from Ohio, and from Pennsylvania, and for that matter from Maryland," Musgrave said.
West Virginia's tracks — some of which are operated by companies that also run competing venues in these border states — lobbied the Legislature to allow them to pursue casino table games in 2007 in response to this competition. All four tracks have since become full-blown casinos with these games. Lawmakers also approved table games for The Greenbrier resort, which opened its casino in 2010.
The table games are also part of the lottery system, and saw gross receipts reach $229 million during the just-completed year. The overall results beat the previous year's figures, though largely because of Charles Town with the other casinos either keeping pace with the prior year or falling below it. These games, plus The Greenbrier's video slots, have so far yielded $237 million in revenues, including $81 million during this past year.
The past year also proved one of the best yet for the thousands of video lottery machines found in licensed bars and clubs throughout the state, with net revenues of $190 million. The proceeds improved over either of the previous two years even though the number of machines and locations has declined since 2006. There were 7,390 machines operating in 1,478 bars and clubs last month.
"We cut back purposely on the number," said Musgrave, citing the recent bidding for new 10-year licenses for these machines. "We felt it would be an adequate number to generate the same revenue."
Hooray for WV for keeping within a budget!
How did that happen?!
That is downright Ungovernmental!
way to go WV!
The largest share, nearly $765 million, came from the nearly 9,000 video slot- and poker-style machines hosted by the state's four racetracks.
That is alot of video money! I can understand that they are now a bit concerned re: declining income resulting from competition. So "addiction" appears to be helping out WV.
They should be getting a call from the Arkansas lottery any moment now.
I didn't know why West Virginia had a surplus of money. I hope they stay in the surplus next year.
W.Va. Lottery must not be as efficient as Mass Lottery in helping players part with their money seeing that their profit is less than a tenth of the latter one.
It was the West Virginia Lottery that showed a surplus not the government. Some of you people don't even read the articles or know very little about state lotteries before making a lame response. There isn't a lottery in the U.S. that isn't showing a profit.
I didn't know that the West Virginia Lottery wasn't run by West Virginia?!
It's not uncommon for lotteries to turn a profit. The odds are designed that way. Your statement makes it seem like they did something unheard for a state lottery.
Sometimes other state agencies show small profits and that money usually goes to the next year's budget. The West Virginia Lottery is unique in that they also get revenues from the casinos they have at their racetracks and in the last fiscal year, the expectation was exceeded by $81 million. According to the article, the state budget earmarked $521.5 million from all lottery and gaming revenues to "the PROMISE college scholarship program and other areas of education, as well as programs meant to help seniors and tourism".
The dynamics have now change because two of states bordering WVA, Ohio and PA both have casino gambling and the WVA Lottery profits from the casinos will be reduced.
"It's not uncommon for lotteries to turn a profit."
With all the cutbacks in state budgets, you probably won't find any state lottery that is being subsidized. It's probably more likely that each state expects to receive at least 25% of all lottery sales. Some states actually blame their lottery when profits are lower than expected because they promised scholarships.
The lottery is probably the only state agency that shows a large profit and lottery revenues were legislated to "fund the PROMISE college scholarship program and other areas of education, as well as programs meant to help seniors and tourism". While lottery profits are distributed through the state spending budget, how the profits are spent is by state law and not by a whim of a state legislators.
The article clearly explains where the $81 million surplus came from, how lottery profits are being spent, and why because of new composition, they won't be expecting that much of a surplus in the future.
My comments weren't entirely directed at you because someone said "I didn't know why West Virginia had a surplus of money. I hope they stay in the surplus next year", when it was all answered in the article.
Does anyone other than Todd Vader and myself understand a little hyperbole?!
I'm getting excited about tonight's drawing $100M, pre-taxed, Powerball jackpot amount -- I welcome this jackpot!
Whoo Hoo!
"Hooray for WV for keeping within a budget"
To my knowledge Todd has never reported a News stories about any West Virginia lottery budget problems so your remarks about this article are not even close to being defined as hyperbole. Bet you added the juvenile smilies to make this response about the article appear even more lame than your last two.
I'm in complete agreement with your assessment.
It's such a nice round number. Nobody wants to win 97 or 99 million, only 100 will do! 
If you were not so pretentious and condescending, you would understand that my hyperbole was directed at Government in general.
Government at every level does not function in a fiscally sound manner.
Juvenile and lame would be most descriptive of your personal attack on me!
I would be quite pleased with a $56,025,000 wire transfer from the Pennsylvania Lottery next week!
I concur with dpoly1 "Government at every level does not function in a fiscally sound manner." and this is true no matter HOW you define 'fiscally sound'!!!
"If you were not so pretentious and condescending, you would understand that my hyperbole was directed at Government in general."
If the topic was government in general, I wouldn't have commented, but this article is about a state lottery that has a $81 million surplus.
"Government at every level does not function in a fiscally sound manner."
That may or may not be true, but there are plenty of other places where that subject can be debated. You won't find any state lotteries running in the red so that type of remark is unrelated in a thread about one state lottery showing a surplus on a message board with lottery related topics.
"Juvenile and lame would be most descriptive of your personal attack on me!"
It's common for people that can't take constructive criticism try to pretend to be the victim and that too is unrelated to the topic. Are you one of those posters that because you can't relate to a topic, try to turn it into your personal soapbox?
Bet you're not aware of the fact many years ago the West Virginia Lottery (an agency of the government) partnered with the horse racing industry and placed a few video poker, keno, and other video gaming machines at WVA racetracks and shared the profits. Over the years the number of machines expanded and today each track has a full service Vegas type casino. The horse racing industry that was the bottom of the barrel is now thriving.
If the statement you're agreeing with is true, how do you account for the $81 million surplus?
I was congratulating WV for running the WV Lottery in the Black!
While commenting on the general state of fiscal irresponsibility at every level of Government.
You remain pretentious and condescending .......................................................................... typical liberal ...............................
Hey DP! Good luck with MM tomorrow evening. How's your health situation doing? Hope all is well.
Thank you!
My health has been terrible. Our only activity this summer was a Pirates game. I didn't make it past the third inning. They took me to first aid for oxygen. COPD (from industrial exposure) is an incidious disease.
Humidity has been off the charts here along with record temps.
A nice win would help me out.
Best wishes to you!
I'm very sorry to hear DP. I'm familiar with with this condition, and it must be a challenge to just go through the every day routines.
I've heard oxygen therapy and exercise programs are beneficial, hopefully their coming up with some new drugs to counteract.
Hope you get your big win soon!
Take care my friend!
Thank you, you are most kind!
I don't qualify for oxygen, but it really helps ............. so, I keep playing
I do try to make the best of each day though ............ it is the only way that I have made it through 26 years of illness .............
Just dreamin' about Saturday's Powerball and the approximately $56,025,000 wire transfer for a Pennsylvania winner .............. I still just play for fun .............
"I was congratulating WV for running the WV Lottery in the Black!"
Three days later and you still haven't read the article. It gives some of the reasons why the lottery had a surplus "We had anticipated that the competition from Ohio would have accelerated and come on board in December. It did not start until June," and "Musgrave said West Virginia's tracks also benefited from the mild winter." Simply put, they underestimated the amount of lottery revenues and you're congratulating them for being wrong.
The Pennsylvania Lottery had net revenues of $955 million which is about 50% higher than WV.
"While commenting on the general state of fiscal irresponsibility at every level of Government."
Can't give your comment on "fiscal irresponsibility" any credibility when it's a known fact you're prone to make comments on articles you haven't read or can't comprehend. Your comments are totally unrelated to state lotteries in general because everyone of them is running in the Black.
"You remain pretentious and condescending"
Because I read the article, you didn't, and I pointed out why your comments were unrelated to it?
If you want to discuss non-lottery stuff, get a gold or premium membership and start a blog.
"typical liberal "
Wrong again and probably why you always pick the wrong numbers and never win the lottery. Nothing wrong about buying a couple of tickets and dreaming, well worth the price, but if you want to win the lottery, making off topic remarks won't help you accomplish that.
I expect you to stop your personal attack on me!
If you want to engage in personal attacks, kindly blog on an MSNBC Blog!
Your lack of respect and inability to comprehend post-secondary rhetoric is sophomoric at best.
Todd will decide if I my posts are inappropriate, not you.
"I expect you to stop your personal attack on me!"
This isn't your grade school playground where you just make up any accusation hoping the playground monitor will take your word for it.
From the Lottery Post rules:
"No thread hijacking: Stick to the topic. If you want to post something unrelated to a particular discussion thread, then start a new topic in the appropriate forum."
and
"No personal attacks. Criticize ideas, not people."
I criticized the fact you went off topic by making a lame remark and using large bold font won't change the fact you did and won't prove you were personally attacked. Maybe on your playground you could change the rules saying after three strikes you're out, but here you tried to change the rules, were called out, and can't take the criticism.
You're not the only one that went off topic on in this thread, but are the only one that can't take constructive criticism and continues off topic by making absurd and false accusations of personal attacks.
Have anything factual or constructive to add to this discussion?
Probably not.