Wyoming Lottery Raises $200,000 in First Day of Sales
Wednesday August 27th 2014Ticket sales for the first day of the Wyoming Lottery reached a total of $200,000 and quickly surpassed the expectations of lottery officials. The Lottery opened for business on Sunday August 24th and the first $6 million in revenue, after the deduction of payouts and expenses, will be distributed to local governments.
Wyoming Lottery CEO Jon Clontz described the first day as “Awesome is the word. Absolutely awesome. I hoped to break $100,000, and I thought that if we got to $120,000 that would be absolutely fantastic.”
At least 400 retailers in Wyoming have signed up to sell lottery tickets for Powerball and Mega Millions. All net revenues from ticket sales in Wyoming will allocated to the Permanent Land Fund’s Common School Account after the initial $6 million has been handed over to towns and cities across the state.
Wyoming is now the 44th state to offer lottery tickets to residents. Celebrations for the big day kicked off with Wyoming resident Mary Ogg, 67, purchasing the very first ticket ever sold to customers in the state. Another eight lucky residents won $1,000 each as well as a year’s worth of Mega Millions tickets.
A highly anticipated source of lottery revenue for the Cowboy State may end up coming from northeast Utah. Lottery games and all forms of betting are illegal in the state of Utah, where a significant portion of the population belongs to the Mormon faith in which gambling is prohibited.
In previous years, Utahns flocked to neighboring Idaho to purchase tickets and accounted for 19 percent of all lottery tickets sold in the state. However, the town of Evanston, Wyoming is now hoping to woo Utah lottery fans away from Idaho. Indeed, a gas station in the town was one of the two top retailers with ticket sales on Sunday reaching a grand total of $2,050.
We’d like to congratulate the Wyoming Lottery on a great first day of sales and wish them all the best for the future. If you’re in or near Wyoming and would like to give this fledgling lottery a boost, then why not visit the Wyoming Lottery website to find out more about the games on offer?
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