Preliminary sales figures for the fiscal year ended June 30th reveal record sales of $93.3 million! This is $11.5 million more than last fiscal year and $2.5 million more than the previous sales record set in fiscal year 1996. As a result, the Idaho Lottery Commission has declared a dividend of $18 million to benefit Idaho public schools and buildings. A dividend check will be presented to Governor Dirk Kempthorne on Wednesday Juy 3rd at 10 a.m. in the Governor´s Office.

Commission chairman, James Bruce of Boise, commend the Lottery staff and the more than one thousand lottery retailers throughout the state for achieving a record sales year. Chairman Bruce also noted that since the lottery began in 1989, total sales have exceeded $1 billion and a total of $229 million has been contributed back to Idaho public schools and buildings.

These funds are distributed evently to the Public School Building Fund, which is all K-12 public schools throughout the state, and the Permanent Building Fund, in which colleges and universities use the state money to fund expansion projects and build new buildings. 

Sales for the Lottery were driven this past year by the three high Powerball Jackpots (over $80 million) that helped increase overall Powerball sales by 37% from last fiscal year. And with an improved instant scratch ticket line up that included licensed games, such as the Harley-Davidson and Monopoly, weekly sales averaged over $1 million. Therefore, overall scratch ticket sales increased by 11% over last year. In addition, there were successful quarterly player promotions through the year that accounted for an overall increase initial Lottery product sales by 16%.