Iowa Lottery sales continue to run ahead of projections for this fiscal year.
Lottery CEO Matt Strawn says sales were up nearly 9% percent through February. “Those continue to be robust as we’re ahead of both last year’s performance and our budget projections for fiscal ’26. So, I am confident that we will continue a pace that keeps us ahead of last year’s results,” Strawn says.
The momentum is driven by a couple of big jackpots that drove Powerball sales up 118% compared to the last fiscal year. Strawn says there are other drivers as well. “With the refreshed Instaplay product category. The new Millionaire for Life, the first national draw game that the Iowa Lottery has introduced in over a decade. We’ve seen improvement with the scratch ticket product category as well,” Strawn says. He says scratch tickets and other games have been driven by their overall refresh and the new WIN-ionaire campaign for the second-half of the fiscal year.
Gas prices have been up and down since the action in the Middle East, but Strawn says they have not yet shown an impact on Lottery sales. “So historically, within the last few years, or maybe going back a little closer to five years, $4 a gallon gas seems to be the point in which we start to see a drop in lottery play,” he says, “because people’s behaviors change as it relates to how frequently they might be visiting a C-store or to fill up the tank or do they even go into the store.”
Strawn expects the momentum they’ve developed to carry through the end of the fiscal year on June 30th.
“I’m confident and optimistic that will carry us through to make sure we’re exceeding those projections for the last four months of the fiscal year,” he says. The proceeds that go to the state from Lottery sales are up more than 14% through February.
