Lottery Revenue Falls Short of Expectations

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Lottery Revenue Falls Short of Expectations

Special Report - July 25, 2007
The North Carolina Education Lottery’s (NCEA) revenues for state education fell nearly 25% below projected amounts for the first full fiscal year of the state sponsored gambling operation. According to a press release, the NCEA transferred $69.5 million into the Lottery Education Fund on Tuesday, bringing its total contribution to the fund this year to approximately $313 million, significantly lower than the $425 million projected by state lawmakers. The Lottery Education Fund was created to use net lottery revenues to finance school renovations, college scholarships, class-size reduction, and the More at Four pre-kindergarten program. The decreased amount of funds available for education reflects a shortfall in overall lottery revenue. Gross sales for the 2006-2007 fiscal year were $889.3 million, short of the
projected $1.2 billion.

As a result of the lackluster revenues, state lawmakers scaled back the amount included in the preliminary 2007-08 budget from net lottery revenues to $350 million, $75 million less than the projected revenues included in the 2006-07 budget.