The West Virginia Lottery’s 17-year run of posting $1 billion-plus in annual gross revenue has come to an end due to shutdowns in March of the state’s casinos and lottery locations.
Gross revenue for the 2020 fiscal year ending June 30 reached $955.7 million, down $187.4 million from fiscal 2019. The state’s share of lottery profits for the fiscal year was $424.05 million, down $163.12 million from 2019.
Limited Video Lottery locations reopened on May 30, and the state’s five casinos followed on June 5. Analysts said pent-up demand made June a strong month for the lottery, with gross revenue of $103.74 million, up 10 percent from June 2019. LVLs posted a record month, with $40.88 million in revenue, up 27 percent from June 2019.
Casino racetrack video lottery and table games revenue came in at $40.9 million, about $5.1 million less than June 2019, due to the loss of four business days and social distancing restrictions.
Lottery Director Jonathan Myers reported the first five days of legal iGaming, launched on July 15, generated $160,379 in revenue on $7.9 million in wagers—the equivalent of a week of sports wagering revenue.
Sports fans “don’t have a whole lot to wager on right now,” Myers acknowledged. Currently, only blackjack and roulette are offered on iGaming platforms, but Myers said more will be added later.
In other lottery news, after a six-month investigation, the commission revoked the license and LVL operating permits for Karen’s Cookie Carnival, located inside a laundromat, and ordered it to pay a fine of $92,100 for multiple instances of cashing checks and extending credit.
Last December, owner Phillip Mann told commissioners he did not believe he had violated lottery regulations, since customers’ checks were cashed in the name of a realty company he owns, not the LVL location. The investigation found between January 2018 and December 2019, Mann’s employees cashed 921 checks for a total of $277,663, including multiple checks written by the same individuals on the same day.
Commissioner Dan Marshall stated, “In my two-plus years on the Lottery Commission, I’ve never seen a case as egregious as this.”
