By Jim Turner ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — Increased costs for necessities might have helped lead to consumers dialing back purchases of scratch-off lottery tickets, as state economists reported Florida Lottery sales decreased during the past fiscal year.
Economists reported that ticket sales came in at $9.417 billion during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which ended June 30. That was down from $9.8 billion in the previous fiscal year and was $132.5 million less than anticipated.
The 2023-2024 total marked the fourth consecutive year of ticket sales — driven by a series of large jackpots in the multi-state Mega Millions and Powerball games — above $9 billion. But economists project sales to be below $9 billion this fiscal year and during the next two years.
A big part of the decline in 2023-2024 was a 6 percent drop in scratch-off ticket sales.
Saba Igbal, senior economist in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office, said scratch-off sales tracked the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and then inflation.
“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,” Igbal said during an Aug. 8 meeting of a panel of economists known as the Revenue Estimating Conference. “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.”
The numbers are part of a long-range “financial outlook” that will go Friday to the Joint Legislative Budget Commission, which is made up of House and Senate members.
The financial outlook will include detailed data and analysis about a variety of state financial issues for the 2025-2026, 2026-2027 and 2027-2028 fiscal years.
Lottery sales are projected to decline to $8.778 billion in the current 2024-2025 fiscal year, which started July 1. Sales are forecast to slowly return to the $9 billion mark by the 2027-2028 fiscal year.
The economists’ report said high jackpots in the Mega Millions and Powerball games are independent events and are treated in making projections as “one-time windfalls.”
Powerball provided the Florida Lottery with $750.9 million in sales during the past fiscal year, driven by a pair of jackpots rolling over the $1 billion mark. During the next five years, Powerball is projected to bring Florida nearly $500 million in sales annually.
Mega Millions accounted for $450 million in sales for Florida in the past fiscal year. The forecast is for the game to bring the state about $300 million annually over the next five years.
The lottery helps fund education programs. While Florida had a drop in ticket sales in 2023-2024, the lottery will send $28.2 million more than projected to what is known as the state Educational Enhancement Trust Fund because of earnings on investments and unclaimed prizes.
About $2.4 billion will go to the trust fund, a fourth consecutive year topping $2 billion, according to the economists. But that is projected to dip to $2.095 billion in the current fiscal year and show little growth over the following five years.
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