RALEIGH (AP) -- The North Carolina Education Lottery has broken a ticket sales record that dates to its first full week in operation.
The lottery said Monday it sold $29.9 million in tickets for the seven days ending Saturday. The previous record was $28.6 million, set during the lottery's first week in April 2006.
Lottery officials say ticket sales have risen over the past several weeks because more people are buying instant win scratch-off tickets. Those tickets now offer more prizes and have a
greater percentage of revenues going to jackpots.
Powerball is also driving sales. The drawing this Wednesday night will have an estimated top prize of $230 million.
The higher sales follow several months of flat revenue.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
NC Education Lottery
I am an educator with New Hanover County Schools and have yet to see all the wonderful benefits of the NC lottery. All the commercials are boasting of smaller class sizes and I am still seeing crammed classes with too many kids needing more individualized instruction. And we wonder why our students are dropping out and falling behind other states. We need to put more money into the schools and less into politician's hands.