After a day or two of stories about lottery sales exceeding expectations, the latest news isn’t as good:
N.C. Lottery Sales Falls $1M Short Of Goal For First Five Days
POSTED: 3:17 pm EDT April 4, 2006
UPDATED: 3:17 pm EDT April 4, 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s new lottery generated more than $24 million in ticket sales during its first five days, about $1 million less than its goal, lottery officials said Tuesday.
Executive director Tom Shaheen said he didn’t know of any particular reason for missing the $25 million target, except maybe Monday’s rainstorms, and said he considered these early days a “very huge successful startup.”
Sales are on par with those of other startup lotteries, lottery commission chairman Charles Sanders said. He pointed out that the lottery started six days earlier than the commission had planned, so any ticket sales now are beyond their expectations.
“I think it’s tough to measure a lottery on the first stroke of a brush,” Shaheen told reporters after a lottery commission conference call Tuesday.
About 4,900 retail outlets are selling scratch-off tickets for four types of games. Two new instant games could be released by next week, Shaheen said.
Once the initial excitement ebbs, he said, “we’re going to need to get more products out on the street.” The lottery could release a couple of new games every two to three weeks and have more than 30 games in place in the next year, Shaheen said.
Lottery commission officials planned to meet Tuesday to begin discussing efforts to offer the Powerball multistate numbers games by May 30, according to Shaheen.
“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” he said.
The $5 “Carolina Cash” tickets have been the most popular-selling ticket to date. Two people have won the game’s 10 top prizes of $100,000 and that should raise ticket demand, Shaheen said.
“We think it’s very positive when we have a winner like that,” he said.
