By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)
Iowa Lottery sales are off to a slow start in the new fiscal year after setting a sales record the previous year. Lottery CEO Matt Strawn gave the Lottery Commission an update during their meeting this morning.
“Gross lottery sales through the first two months of fiscal ’25 totaled $69,490,821. This represents a 26.8% decrease from this same point last year,” Strawn says. He says lottery proceeds to the state through August are down around 48 percent from the same point last year.
Strawn had warned at the end of the last fiscal year that maintaining the record sales would be tough due to national economic conditions and soft sales in national lotto games. He cited Powerball sales as an example of how lotto games have impacted the new fiscal year. “Last year through August, Powerball sales in Iowa totaled $16.5 million. This year, over that same two-month time frame, Powerball sales in Iowa totaled $5.9 million,” Strawn says. “Thus, year-over-year Powerball sales in Iowa are down 64.08%.” Strawn says national Powerball sales trends are down a nearly identical amount.
Strawn says jackpots are hard to predict and once they get going they bring in a lot of people who are not regular players. “And that’s even more so when those jackpots climb above the one billion-dollar threshold, which happened twice during the first two months of last fiscal year alone. Once in Powerball and once in Mega Millions,” he says. “And so not surprisingly as a result, Mega Millions performance to start the fiscal year is larger mirroring that of Powerball, as Mega Millions game sales are down 66.59% over the first two months.” Strawn says the national economy has an impact on sales, and that includes changes in interest rates that impact the annuity and jackpot amount. “Simply stated, higher interest rates do lead to corresponding higher advertised grand prize amounts. And those higher advertised grand prize amounts lead to additional sales,” Strawn says.
Strawn says the issues they are facing were factored in as they prepared the budget for this fiscal year, and that has helped them stay close to their projections.
“Lottery sales for the first two months of fiscal 2025 are $3.01 million ahead of budget projections. Lottery operating expenses are $247,000 under budget. And when it comes to fiscal year-to-date proceeds, we are just less than one million behind our budget projections,” he says.
Strawn says sales are unlikely to reach the record heights of recent years, but the adjustments they made in this year’s budget and continued diversity of products with help them deal with the drop.
