Maryland Lottery Produces Second-Biggest Fiscal Year Ever, Scratch-Offs Lead The Way

You can’t expect to set a new record every year. But the Maryland Lottery came darned close in Fiscal Year 2024, as total gaming in the state brought in $1.585 billion for state programs and the lottery generated $699.6 million in profit to the state — both the second-highest fiscal year figures in state history.

The Maryland Lottery released the numbers on Friday, totaling gambling financial figures in all verticals spanning July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024.

“We had an exceptional performance in Fiscal Year 2023, so we came into FY2024 facing a challenging year-over-year comparison,” Maryland Lottery and Gaming Director John Martin said in a statement. “Nonetheless, we had another strong year on a number of fronts. The Lottery added a new daily game, and the sports wagering market continued to expand. We’re proud of our role in generating funds for important state programs.”

Total lottery sales came in $2.732 billion, down 1.2% from the record set in FY2023, while the profit to the state equated to a 2.1% drop-off from the FY2023 record of $714.3 million.

Inside the numbers

Of the $2.732 billion Maryland consumers spent, $1.715 billion (62.8%) was returned to them in the form of prizes. The state’s near-$700 million cut represented 25.6% of the pie, while $220.2 million (8.1%) was distributed to retailers as commission and $96.7 million (3.5%) was appropriated for operating expenses.

Among the $699.6 million to the state, the lion’s share — $657.4 million — went to the Maryland General Fund. The rest was distributed among Baltimore City Schools Construction, the Maryland Stadium Authority, and other funds, councils, and causes.

The Maryland Lottery also broke down sales and profits by specific lottery game, and the clear top seller was scratch-offs, which generated $1.061 billion in sales and $156.4 million in profit. This was the third consecutive year scratch-offs surpassed $1 billion in sales in Maryland.

Monitor games were also hugely popular. Racetrax attracted sales of $315.1 million and profit of $64.7 million, while Keno topped the profit number with $69.5 million off of $271.9 million in sales.

Pick4 was tops among daily draw games, with $296.9 million in sales and $115.5 million in profit. Pick3 came in slightly behind at $237.2 million and $98.2 million, while Pick5 did sales of $67.4 million and generated a massive 47.3% hold to score profit of $31.9 million.

Cash Pop, a new game just launched on May 6 of this year, produced $5.3 million in sales and $1.3 million profit in less than two months of operation.

As for the heavily publicized jackpot draw games, Powerball produced $184.1 million in sales and $72.5 in profit, topping Mega Millions’ $131.5 million and $50.5 million, respectively. Multi Match and Cash 4 Life were decidedly less popular, generating a combined $46.2 million in sales and $15.3 million in profit.

How many new lottery millionaires?

Other lottery numbers of note:

• Prizes of at least $1 million awarded: 33
• Prizes of at least $10,000 awarded: 1,808
• Average prizes awarded per day: $4.7 million
• Average FY2024 commission per retailer: $51,000

As for other verticals, land-based casino revenue was $1.964 billion, the third-highest ever and down 4.7% compared to FY2023. Of that revenue, $824 million went to the state in taxes.

Sports wagering produced $60.3 million in tax revenue for the state ($58.1 million of that coming from mobile betting), while fantasy sports produced about $984,000 for Maryland.