Fiscal year 2025 is not off to a great start for many state lotteries. Through two months, most states have been reporting big declines in sales.
Those drop-offs are particularly high in draw games, specifically Mega Millions and Powerball. The country’s two biggest draw options are not generating sales like they did a year ago.
But, that was to be expected.
A year ago, the two games had big jackpots helping kick off the new fiscal year.
With drawings tamer this time around, it’s led to some concerning results.
However, state lottery officials and members from states with online lotteries believe things will eventually balance out.
Why are Mega Millions and Powerball sales down this year?
Draw sales are always more difficult to project.
Their “success” often depends on players not winning smaller jackpots. That way, the top prize gets larger and pulls in less frequent players.
Fiscal year 2024 kicked off with a pair of big jackpots. It started on July 1, 2023.
Powerball had a jackpot reach $1.08 billion before it was won on July 19. Mega Millions had a jackpot hit $1.6 billion before it was won on Aug. 8.
In fact, six of the all-time top-10 US jackpots have taken place since the start of FY24.
Recently, an $800 million Mega Millions jackpot was won as part of FY25. However, those sales numbers haven’t been entirely factored in. Most states have sales data through just August.
James Carey, Executive Director of the New Jersey Lottery, discussed these issues during Thursday’s state commission meeting:
“Keep in mind, when we prepare our budget for sales we look at a budgetary number that we want to hit, and that is our target for the year, and then we simply divide those target numbers by 12. When you do that, you have to factor in a couple of issues. So, the budget doesn’t take into account that we’d like to hit a number of, say, $180 million in sales for Powerball during the course of the year. Some months we’re going to have low Powerball jackpots like we do right now, which is $195 million, and we might not achieve our budgetary target for the month. What we are waiting for, of course, is that month where you have a $1 billion Powerball jackpot and sales are significantly higher than what’s been budgeted for the month.”
How much have sales declined for popular US lottery draw games?
The year-over-year (YoY) decline in sales for these two notable draw games is pretty widespread.
It is impacting states with iLottery, states with couriers, and states with just standard retail services.
Most recently, on Thursday, the New Jersey Lottery detailed its current sales dips.
New Jersey sales drop over $100 million
Overall in New Jersey, total lottery sales are at $559 million through August, down 16% year over year.
That’s due to the decline in the state’s Mega Millions and Powerball sales. Combined, the two are seeing decreases of more than $100 million in purchases, a 58% drop from last year.
Their sales are also 28% under budget as of now, but as Carey pointed out, that can be made up over time with larger jackpots being established.
New Jersey is working toward iLottery sales in the state and also has multiple courier options available.
Digital Instants make up for sluggish NC Lottery draw sales
North Carolina is in a unique position where its year-over-year sales are up quite a bit.
That’s due to its Digital Instants not existing early in FY24.
The online instant product was introduced in November of last year. Thanks to nearly $400 million in sales from Digital Instants through August of FY25, North Carolina’s overall sales are up 38.4% YoY.
However, it has notable drops in Powerball and Mega Millions sales like other states.
For NC, both games are down 64% in sales through two months of the new year. Combined, they are down over $71 million in purchases.
Massachusetts seeing $24 million dip for Mega Millions and Powerball
Massachusetts is working toward an online lottery launch, which is currently targeted for the end of 2025.
In the meantime, the state is hoping it can utilize couriers to help boost retail sales.
Through two months of FY25, Massachusetts is down 5.7% in sales YoY.
That’s due to draw games being down 27.8% overall, with Mega Millions and Powerball being the main culprits.
Mega Millions sales dropped 58.8% through August, while Powerball features a decline of 43.8%. Combined, that equates to $24.4 million in lost sales.
Colorado draw sales $46 million behind budget
Colorado is another state with courier influence, but is still seeing declines in sales.
Draw sales in August were down $11.6 million YoY.
The Colorado Lottery set a sales goal of just under $266 million for draw games in FY25 despite getting to $312 million for FY24. That was thanks to the high volume of jackpots last fiscal year helping drive up sales numbers.
Colorado Lottery Budget Manager David Aldag said these sales would be unpredictable during last week’s commission meeting:
“Jackpots are always a bit of a crapshoot, because we just don’t know what’s going to happen with those big, big jackpots.”
Maine Lottery slips 40% in YoY sales
The Maine Lottery is down nearly 40% in sales YoY through Sept. 7.
Sales of Mega Millions and Powerball have declined by over 60%. Combined, the two games have fallen off by over $9.6 million.
The dip in sales of those two games alone is more than the $8.5 million the state lottery has declined in total.
South Carolina seeing $34 million reduction from Mega Millions, Powerball
Through the first 11 weeks of FY25, total draw sales for the South Carolina Lottery are down nearly $17 million.
It’s not hard to find out where the losses are coming from.
Mega Millions went from $30.4 million in sales to $15.6 million YoY. Powerball sales dropped from $35.1 million to $15.8 million YoY.
Combined, that’s more than $34 million in decline for just those two draw games.
Kansas traditional lottery sales fall nearly 16%
Kansas Lottery traditional sales reduced by 15.9% through August, going from $62 million to $52.1 million.
Scratch sales are right about even through two months, so it comes down to declining draw games.
Mega Millions and Powerball both saw drop-offs of over 62% in Kansas.
Combined, the two have seen $13.7 million in fewer sales through two months of the fiscal year. That alone covers the total losses for the state.
Kansas will be launching iLottery early in 2025. Its arrival could boost sales for the second half of FY25.
Photo by Eric Risberg / AP
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