Behind the success of its Digital Instants launch, the North Carolina Education Lottery blew past its previous record for yearly sales.
The instant win games online debuted in November of last year and far exceeded expectations.
Budgeted for just $182.3 million in sales for FY24, the products finished with $1.13 billion in sales, according to unaudited results provided by the North Carolina Lottery.
That pushed the state to $5.38 billion in total sales.
Overall, that figure was a 24% increase from the FY23 record total of $4.34 billion.
Digital Instants outperform by over 500% in North Carolina
The North Carolina online lottery couldn’t have seen the success Digital Instants had coming.
The product outperformed expectations by over 500%.
Digital Instants were available for eight months of FY24, averaging more than $141 million in sales per month.
Its performance alone is what propelled North Carolina to such a large new sales record.
Both sales from lottery draw games and retail scratchers were down for the state for the year, though by just small percentages.
North Carolina isn’t shying away from the momentum Digital Instants has created.
The state is budgeting $6.2 billion in total sales for FY25. That includes $2.2 billion in sales from Digital Instants.
The total sales would be a 15.2% increase, with Digital Instants at a 94.2% jump, nearly doubling the FY23 total.
While the instants weren’t around for all of FY24, North Carolina is still budgeting an average of $183.3 million in sales per month for this fiscal year.
Van Denton, North Carolina Education Lottery Communications Director, told PlayiLottery last month that the organization is confident in its ability to hit that target:
“The lottery projects additional growth in Digital Instants in fiscal year 2025. Current projections are that Digital Instant games will make up 35% of revenues in the new fiscal year, becoming the second most popular game category, second only to scratch-offs. The lottery plans to continue to provide a fun and exciting portfolio of Digital Instant games, including more seasonal game launches, an expansion of the progressive jackpot games, and new omnichannel game titles.”
Scratch, draw sales take a dip in FY24
The addition of new digital online games was the highlight for the North Carolina Lottery in FY24.
That’s because the other game categories were on the decline.
Scratch ticket sales, which make up the biggest piece of the sales pie, came in at $2.92 billion. That was a 1.7% drop from the record $2.97 billion scratchers did in FY23.
What’s a little more surprising is that draw games also declined. That is something we haven’t seen yet from other states in their FY24 sales reports.
North Carolina had $1.32 billion in draw sales, down nearly 3% from the $1.36 billion from a year ago. The state also includes its iLottery draw sales in that total. In FY23, NC reported that online purchases accounted for about 10% of its draw total.
Only Powerball saw an increase in sales from FY23 to FY24. That has been the case in every state that has reported its year-end sales thus far.
Here’s how each of the draw games’ unaudited sales look for FY24, compared to what it did a year prior:
- Powerball: $257.4 million, up 11.3%
- Mega Millions: $150.9 million, down 14.5%
- Pick 3: $449.2 million, down 1.8%
- Pick 4: $218.4 million, down 0.6%
- Cash 5: $63.3 million, down 12.2%
- EZ Match: $5.3 million, N/A
- Lucky for Life: $41.1 million, down 8.1%
- Keno: $76.6 million, down 9.2%
- Fast Play: $56.7 million, down 25.3%
Record contribution to NC education
On top of the record sales numbers, the North Carolina Lottery was able to raise a record contribution to state education.
In total, $1.09 billion is going back to the state through FY24 lottery sales. That was a 9% increase from the $1 billion it generated in FY23. This marks the second consecutive year the state lottery has hit that $1 billion milestone.
This year’s total was $161 million more than the state lottery’s budgeted amount of $931 million.
With this record year, the North Carolina Lottery has now raised more than $11 billion for education in the state since 2006.
Photo by LightField Studios via Shutterstock
Graphic from the North Carolina Lottery
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