The Colorado Lottery has been chasing down a key milestone for many years.
That turning point was $900 million in yearly sales.
On Wednesday, it was finally able to say it reached that mark, finishing fiscal year 2024 right at the target.
Colorado Lottery Director Tom Seaver was pleased to share this information with the commission board:
“We kind of talk about these numbers fairly routinely. But, this will be the first year that lottery sales will end up with a nine as the first number. $900 million is a number that we’ve been working at for a long, long time. All the people on this (board) have done an exceptional job to get us where we are.”
The new yearly sales record was supported by lottery draw games, which increased by 6.5% in FY24.
While scratch ticket sales dropped 1.5%, the Colorado Lottery is set to unveil a new second-chance drawing protocol that could help drive up FY25’s numbers.
Draw games go $68 million over projection in Colorado
As has been the case in a majority of states, draw games sales were up for Colorado in the fiscal year.
The state budgeted a target of $243.5 million for FY24 after amassing $293.1 million in sales in FY23.
Expectations for jackpot fatigue didn’t pan out, however.
The Colorado Lottery recorded $312.1 million in sales from its draw games.
While not providing data for each game, Powerball has been a big growth spot for US lotteries due to its massive jackpots throughout the fiscal year.
Colorado Lottery Jackpot Games Manager Jay Sisson noted that those jackpots were the key to the massive sales number:
“But as far as jackpot games, our goal was $241 million. We ended up at $312.1 (million). So, kind of covered the decrease in scratch play, which was great. But hopefully we can do it again next year. You know, those big jackpots make all the difference.”
Scratch sales down nearly $10 million for Colorado Lottery
The success of draw games was important for the Colorado Lottery.
Scratch game sales dropped from $596.7 million in FY23 to $587.9 million in FY24.
Not helping matters is that the state set a budget goal of $620.6 million for scratchers. That’s something Seaver was quick to take the blame for:
“I felt sorry that we had to report that we were $32 million short of our goal. We set a really aggressive goal, without really knowing the impact that inflation would have this year and on the economy. When we set these numbers, we have no idea of how strong or weak the economy is going to be, what other factors are going to come into play that impact our sales. We just take our very best estimate of where they’re going to be. I set the scratch number too high. It’s a reflection of across the industry, everyone is pretty flat this year. We have some lotteries that are down double digits, and that’s not us. We were very, very close to last year. So, you know, I don’t want anybody to get discouraged or take away that there’s an issue with scratch.”
Monthly second-chance drawings starting this fall
One big change coming in FY25 to scratch games in Colorado is the way the lottery will have second-chance drawings.
Colorado currently offers second-chance drawings for $10, $20, $40, and $50 scratch games.
These drawings are applied to select games, but could get expanded out over a long period of time.
Drawings occurred sometimes 1-3 years after the player had entered their non-winning ticket. On top of that, there was just one winner per drawing.
Now, starting in September, the Colorado Lottery will make every losing scratch ticket available for a monthly second-chance drawing.
All games will apply, and each month, a $100,000 winner will be chosen.
This will open the door for more participation in second-chance drawings and create more MyLottery users on the state’s mobile lottery app.
Seaver touted the new format as a great way to give low-price-point players a chance to win big:
“The whole idea of this change is equity, giving more access to these second chance prize dollars to every player. There’s never been a time in Colorado Lottery history, where a $1 ticket or $2 ticket could be worth $100,000. So, just giving that amount of value, adding that amount of value also addresses one other thing that’s a huge topic in the industry, which is the decreasing value, perceived value of $1 and $2 games.”
While the updated format allows for all customers to play at any price point, there are still incentives to purchase higher-priced tickets.
The value of the ticket price will equal the entries into each month’s drawing. So, a $1 ticket will be one entry, while a $10 ticket will be 10, and a $50 option will count as 50 entries.
The Colorado Lottery will begin this new plan with a soft launch in September, then begin pushing it through the media in October.
Photo by Mehaniq via Shutterstock
Graphic from the Colorado Lottery
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