The first four months of the fiscal year for the Massachusetts Lottery have been poor compared to last year, and the Lottery’s executive director is laying the blame on a lack of exciting jackpot prizes from Mega Millions and Powerball.
The lottery sales are faltering from last year’s sales at this time by in excess of $60 million, Executive Director Michael Sweeney told the Lottery Commission. Sales in October were $414.2 million, 13 percent lower than October of 2018. Mega Millions was down $50.9 million over last October and Powerball was down $22.8 million.
By contrast, most of the lottery’s other products recorded increases, including Keno, the Numbers Game, Mass Cash and Megabucks Doubler.
He attributed this to Mega Millions jackpots that have generally stayed at or below $100 million for most of its drawings, while Powerball jackpots were at or below $100 million for most of its drawings.
Larger jackpots typically generate more lottery ticket purchases.
Sweeney told the commission, “If you could remove Mega Millions and Powerball, or at least neutralize them to a normal year, we’d probably be on pace for a record year and a record profit year. We cannot do that, though.”
Despite this dip, the lottery is actually setting records for profitability. In this last fiscal year its total revenue was $5.499 billion, which added up to profit of $1.092 billion—a record.
