Mississippi starts selling lottery tickets

The Mississippi Lottery kicked off the sale of scratch-off lottery tickets this week and will sell Mega Millions in January.

US.- The Mississippi Lottery starts selling scratch-off tickets for the first time in the state’s history on Monday. Tickets for Powerball and Mega Millions games will be available starting January 30, 2020.

Approximately 1,200 convenience stores started selling lottery tickets on Monday, according to AP. The first US$80 million in proceeds generated by the lottery will go to the state infrastructure. Any revenue after that will go to the state education fund, the Mississippi Lottery said.

Mississippi had already generated US$300k in the first two hours after it kicked off the sale of its lottery tickets. The state allows people to buy the tickets with a credit or debit card without an additional fee.

Currently, there are only five states in the US that do not have a lottery: Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah.

Mississippi Lottery sets its sights on advertising

The Lottery has chosen the Maris West and Baker firm to handle all advertising and marketing activity for a period of three years. The move from the Lottery aims to establish itself as profitable. It will sign a three-year contract with Maris West and Baker, which will create and buy ads for the lottery.

Meg Annison, lottery communications director, said that payments to the marketing firm will differ every year, and will equal approximately 11.5% of the lottery’s advertising and marketing budget. The current one ends on June 30, 2020, and sets US$3.5 million for advertising and marketing. Of that money, Maris West and Baker will receive around US$400k.