Nebraska Lottery sees decrease in bettors, leading to less funding for state programs
LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – A new report from the Nebraska state auditor’s office indicates that lottery sales have decreased by millions of dollars, decreasing funding to some major state programs.
Many lifelong lottery players gave their take on why it may be.
“They raised the price on the mega draw to 5 dollars, and I’ve only played once or twice on because of that,” said Stan Perry.
He’s been playing for decades and still remembers when the mega millions tickets cost only two dollars.
Perry said the increased costs may have slowed him down, but he will still play when the jackpot prize is high.
“When the jackpot hits a certain amount, like 600 million or something like that, then more people play,” says Perry.
Stephanie Odvarka agrees, “That’s why I stopped here today, to buy a lottery ticket,” she said in front of a gas station she frequents for her weekly Pick 5 ticket.
Odvarka said she’s surprised that sales are down when the mega jackpot continues to grow.
The jackpot reaching $650 million as of Monday night.
State Auditor Mike Foley explains that lotto consumers have many more convenient ways to play than visiting the stores, and it’s not only due to the new casinos that have opened up around Nebraska.
“You can get on to gambling sites and gamble to your hearts content,” he said. “People are doing that more and more. Its anonymous, we can’t control it, and people are buying less lotto tickets.”
The consequence of the lack in sales has amounted to an estimated $36 million, and the result of that has been a loss of funding to several state initiatives.
“There are some really important programs that are not going to be properly funded,” said Foley.
Programs such as environmental trust, the state fair, education programs and compulsive gamblers assistance that are seeing about a $10 million loss of funding.
Foley says it’s hard to say what needs to happen next to combat this, but some patrons, like Jordan Lloyd, say the change is a mark of the times.
“The older generation really played,” he said. “Us younger generation don’t really play like that. We have our money going elsewhere and I guess we don’t have the hope or the faith in winning like the older folks did.”
As for the loss of funding to state programs, Foley said he is most concerned about the gamblers assistance program as many casinos are looking to expand.
