Powerball revenues 50% above projections

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(Host) During its first month of operation, revenues from Powerball are running more than 50% above projections, but state lottery officials believe that things will settle down in the coming months. State Lottery Director Alan Yandow says the state has been very lucky during its initial experience with Powerball.

In the very first week that Vermont joined the national lottery game, Powerball had a jackpot of more than $165 million and tickets were flying out of lottery outlets all across the state. Yandow told members of the Legislature’s Administrative Rules Committee that the state is projecting weekly sales of roughly $280,000 for Powerball, but in the first month, sales ran 55% above these projections:

(Yandow) “I think the biggest reason is that we started out with a jackpot of $165 million and that does tend to attract attention. Players that wouldn’t normally play the game may come out and buy a ticket. So that the sales overall throughout all the states increase when those large jackpots get in there. So we just happened to catch it at a fortunate time.”

(Host) Yandow was expecting that sales for the tri-state Megabucks game – a game that has much lower jackpots than Powerball – would decline with the arrival of Powerball. And that’s exactly what has happened during the first month:

(Yandow) “Actually Megabucks has decreased by about 16-18% right now. We expected that to happen, in fact to go up as much as 20-23%. We have some very loyal Megabucks players out there and we’re going to try and put some incentives into the Megabucks program in the next few months to just remind them that Megabucks is more of a local game. And in additional to Powerball the large jackpot game and they have other options.”

(Host) Yandow expects that revenue from Powerball will increase the state’s Education Fund by at least $3 million this year.

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