Florida is getting back into the courier game at the right time.
The Florida Lottery is reporting that it did $9.42 billion in sales for FY24, down 3.9% from the $9.80 billion it produced in FY23.
The latest sales were also $132.5 million less than what was anticipated for the state.
State economists point toward the pandemic and inflation rates as to why sales are declining.
Florida is not among the states with online lottery options. However, the arrival of courier theLotter could give it a slight boost this year.
The third-party seller of retail lottery tickets through online means has launched in the state, giving residents more options for playing the Florida Lottery.
Scratch sales drop 6% for Florida Lottery
The Florida Lottery surpassed $9 billion in sales for the fourth consecutive year. However, economists project sales to fall below that mark in FY25.
Projections call for $8.78 billion in sales for FY25. The reason for that is declining scratcher purchases.
Like other states, Florida saw a decrease in scratch sales for FY24. It was a notable drop of 6%, as well. In FY23, the state tallied $7.04 billion of its sales from the scratch product, which was nearly 72% of the total sales for the year.
With the dip, the Florida Lottery had $6.62 billion in scratch sales last year. That accounts for just over 70% of total sales.
Saba Igbal, senior economist for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, attributed the decline to a combination of the pandemic and inflation during the Aug. 8 Revenue Estimating Conference:
“It’s kind of the story around COVID, the time of COVID, we saw the ticket sales really start to increase. So, people were kind of playing a lot more. And then in recent years, we’ve seen that kind of start to decline a little bit. Especially last year, probably as people now have to spend more on kind of the necessities, as things are kind of more expensive. So, we’ve seen the ticket sales kind of start to come down to reflect that.”
Lottery draw games projected to decline
The reason behind low projections for FY25 is unpredictable sales coming from multistate draw games.
Recent years have seen Powerball and Mega Millions produce large jackpots, creating more interest from non-regular lottery players.
In FY24, Powerball accounted for $750.9 million in sales. In FY25, the state is anticipating just $500 million in purchases.
Mega Millions had $450 million in sales last year, but is dropping to a projection of $300 million in the years ahead.
While jackpots are unpredictable, the upcoming price change to Mega Millions in April could skew projected sales.
Overall, FY24 saw Florida tally $2.80 billion in draw ticket purchases.
Also, the introduction of theLotter could lead to more draw sales. The courier will offer online sales of select draw games in the state, including multistate games, through a third-party service.
With theLotter being the first and only courier available in Florida, it could bring in new players to the state lottery, especially as jackpots grow.
Overall, couriers accounted for less than 1% of US lottery sales in 2023, according to a report from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming.
However, couriers are only available in less than half of the states in the country.
The New Jersey Lottery, which has four couriers actively operating, reported that these services were responsible for about 10% of Mega Millions and Powerball sales in FY24.
Photo by Talaj via Shutterstock
Graphics from the Florida Lottery and theLotter
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