Mass. lottery hits sales record of $4.74b; also logs record profits of nearly $1b

By Sarah N. Mattero, Globe Correspondent

The Massachusetts State Lottery announced today that it had set a sales record in the past fiscal year as it amassed $4.74 billion in sales. It credited the increase to a variety of factors, including savvy management and a warm winter that allowed people to get out and gamble.

The Lottery also racked up $981 million in net profits, breaking another record from its 40-year history, said Treasurer Steven Grossman, who heads the state lottery commission.

“Thanks to new game introductions, strategic marketing and prudent management, we are marking fiscal 2012 as the highpoint in the Lottery’s 40-year history with an all around record-breaking year,” Grossman said in a statement.

The profits will be distributed to the state’s 351 cities and towns in the form of unrestricted local aid. Lottery profits are the biggest source of unrestricted local aid available to Massachusetts’s towns and cities.

The sales number was $313 million higher than 2011 and $31 million higher than the previous record, set in 2008. The profit number was $94 million higher than 2011 and $30 million higher than the previous record, set in 2006.

One driver for the record-breaking sales was an 8.1 percent increase in instant ticket sales, officials said. Instant tickets accounted for $3.251 billion, or 68.6 percent, of the Lottery’s total revenues in 2012.

Other factors in the increase included expanding Mass Cash to a nightly drawing, which spurred sales to $71 million, and increasing the cost of Powerball tickets from $1 to $2 which led to a $22.2 million increase in game sales, officials said.

The weather also cooperated. Due to the unusually warm weather, there were no snowstorms to suppress Lottery sales during winter months, officials said.

“We continue to develop entertaining and innovative product offerings in order to reach new levels of revenue growth and maximize local aid made available to cities and towns,” Paul Sternburg, the Lottery executive director, said in a statement.