I’ve been meaning to sit down and do a comparative analysis of casino and lotteries revenues over the past year, to see whether the economic downturn (ED) is causing people to gamble less, or just forcing them to curtail trips to Las Vegas and other gaming destinations (and even local venues). Lo and behold, someone’s beaten me to the punch, in a very superficial way. From the State Lottery News:
While casinos around the country are having problems with their revenue numbers for the first time in a long time, state lotteries are not suffering from a similar fate. State lotteries are setting ticket sale records all across North America.
Iowa is the newest state to report that they have broken a sales record. They reported sales of nearly $250 million for the fiscal year that recently ended. The sales were a six percent increase from the previous year.
The Iowa Lottery began back in 1985 and has steadily increased over the years. This year, the $249.2 million was a record. The only time the figures were ever higher was when they offered Touchplay video games for a brief time.
Although it is good news that the state broke the sales record, Iowa Lottery Vice President Mary Neubauer warned that the trend may not continue.
The economy has taken a bite out of lottery sales recently. In Iowa, they were 18 percent ahead of last year in September, but dropped to only six percent by years end. The economy is being blamed for the slowing of sales.
There’s some major hedging in the last paragraph, but I think that it would be worthwhile to compare lottery and casino revenue for the past two years to see whether they move together, diverge, or have no relationship. I’d particularly like to compare NJ and PA’s numbers.