The Hoosier Lottery is finally starting to slow down from its all-time pandemic highs. Sales and profits are down for the budget year, but lottery officials saw the drop coming.
According to a recent State Lottery Commission meeting, the Hoosier Lottery is expecting to bring in 11% less money to the state this year.
Hoosier Lottery sales drop
The current fiscal year ends for the lottery on June 30. In other words, we’ll have the final numbers for the 2022 budget year before long.
The lottery is on track to return over $340 million worth of profits during that stretch. That’s down a bit from last year’s record-breaking $375 million haul.
Obviously, any sort of drop isn’t ideal, but lottery officials were expecting a hit to the numbers during the current cycle.
The pandemic led to insanely high lotto sales numbers last year. Hoosiers turned to the lottery for entertainment since other options around the state weren’t as readily available.
That led to all sorts of records that the State Lottery Commission knew wouldn’t be sustainable. Because of that, the Hoosier Lottery was planning for a drop in sales this year as the world returned to normal.
In fact, the lottery’s projections are still ahead of schedule. There’s a $15 million buffer between the current revenue drop and what the state was planning for.
Lottery momentum slows
The lottery started running out of steam after the new year. Sales were on pace for another all-time high as of late January.
That was mostly due to an overwhelming number of scratch-off tickets. 80% of lottery ticket sales were coming from scratch games at the time.
However, the lottery failed to keep up that pace throughout the rest of the budget year.
The Hoosier Lottery’s numbers usually receive a nice bump from its yearly Holiday Games collection. The post-Christmas sales drop could be partially to blame on the absence of those games.
The lottery commission hasn’t released specific sales numbers for individual games yet, so we’ll have to wait for the next annual report in a few months to figure out exactly what Hoosiers spent their money on.
Online Indiana lottery games
The 2022 budget year may be wrapping up, but things could look a lot different at this time next year.
Right now, the Hoosier Lottery is expecting sales to be flat for fiscal year 2023.
However, those projections don’t take the potential for online lottery games into account.
The Hoosier Lottery took a stab at bringing online games into the fold earlier this year. Lawmakers ended up stepping in the prevent that from happening.
Online lotto games won’t be around to help bolster the numbers this year, but that could change next time around. It all depends on what lawmakers are able to pass during the next legislative session.
Regardless of adding new games, the lottery is still in a strong position. $340 million in profits for Indiana is certainly nothing to sneeze at. If online lottery games make their debut next year, then the state could be in for a huge 2023.
