Following national trend, lottery ticket sales dip in New Jersey

The New Jersey Lottery is not producing as much revenue as the Christie administration expected when it entered into a 15-year contract with the private company Northstar to manage sales and marketing.

The disappointing sales reflect a national downturn for lotteries, said state Treasurer Andrew Eristoff.

“The two multi-state games, Powerball and Mega Millions, which were flat last year and in fiscal ’15 so far are down a combined 30 percent in sales nationwide and here,” he said during a budget hearing.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo believes there’s another reason for the sagging sales.

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“There’s a generation that went to the local convenience store, picked up their newspaper, picked up their cup of coffee, and picked up their lottery tickets and went off to work, said Sarlo, D-Bergen. “The younger generations don’t do that anymore.”

Northstar is following through on its commitment to to support lottery retailers with technology and other improvements, Eristoff said.

“And that’s being frankly borne out by the fact that we are seeing sales increases on the instant ticket side,” he said. “The sales of instant tickets in fiscal 2015 are up by 10.5 percent so far. So we think that’s a notable movement in the right direction.”

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