Arizona State Lottery on verge of billion-dollar jackpot
Nov 27, 2014, 7:08 AM | Updated: 7:08 am
The Arizona State Lottery has seen sales steadily climb over the past five years.
That trend is expected to continue.
“We know it’s going to happen in the future,” said lottery executive director Jeff Hatch-Miller, who predicts “a billion-dollar jackpot in the Powerball or Mega Millions and a billion dollars in sales during the year.”
Last year, state lottery sales hit $723.9 million. It’s a nice problem to have, admitted Hatch-Miller, who said the lottery commission allocated a small percentage of those funds to retooling the lottery system before the big purse hits.
“We realized (with) our accounting, computers, and websites, were not up to a billion-dollar transaction,” he said.
With a billion-dollar jackpot, Hatch-Miller expects a billion dollars in sales to follow.