Lottery revenue in West Virginia tops $1b

The West Virginia Lottery has reported that revenue topped US$1 billion for the 17th straight year.

US.- Lotteries all around the United States are some of the gambling modalities in which the states can rely on, as their performances are usually consistent. This is the case of the West Virginia Lottery, which has recorded its 17th consecutive year of achieving the US$1 billion mark in revenues.

According to the state Lottery Commission, the 2018-2019 revenues increased by approximately US$52 million from the previous year. The results are actually surprising, as the Lottery had predicted that revenues would fall this year.

Dean Patrick, deputy director for finance, told Lottery Commission members about the methods that were used to reach the projections. Patrick said that the revenues were expected to be influenced by the slowdown in business at the Wheeling Island casino. They also expected accessibility issues due to renovation projects at Interstate 70.

Moreover, as some construction suffered a delay and Limited Video Lottery rebounded, it rose about US$24 million from the previous year, totalled US$392 million and helped achieve these results.

Sports betting revenue falls 148%

The market posted an astonishing drop during last month’s operations. In June, West Virginia sports betting posted US$377,552 in revenue, a 148.2% drop month-on-month. Furthermore, total handle fell by 13%. May revenue was US$937,065, which more than doubles last month’s figures. Then, the overall amount wagered by players was US$10.7 million, higher than June’s US$9.5 million.

According to West Virginia Lottery Director John Myers, there hasn’t been significant movement in the mobile sports betting segment. He had recently advanced the process will delay the launch for weeks. He also explained they are studying the location of the system’s servers, to ensure they aren’t against the Act’s requirements.

“The location of one of the servers was in question during the testing period,” he said as quoted by MetroNews. “I think we have agreement among everybody that that needs to be located in the state of West Virginia in order to make sure that there is not an issue or violation of the Federal Wire Act.”