Lottery Makes First Transfer Of Money To The State

Lottery first transfer to State

By Staff 4-5,2015

The Wyoming Lottery reached another milestone Tuesday with the transfer of lottery profits to the State.  WyoLotto CEO John Clontz presented State Treasurer Mark Gordon with a check worth $1.12 million dollars, nearly $700 dollars more than anticipated, and months before they had planned.

Clontz says for some they thought that the transfer of money to the state didn’t come fast enough, but he says lottery officials wanted to pay off their 2.6 million dollar start up loan first.

 

Clontz says one of the reasons they were able to pay off the loan and transfer money ahead of schedule was because of the buying frenzy surrounding the $1.6 billion dollar Powerball jackpot. Clontz says they plan on transferring money every quarter, but it will be difficult to predict the amount of each transfer because that depends on ticket sales and the size of jackpots of  the multi-state games.

 

State Treasurer Mark Gordon says the transfer of over one million dollars is a bright spot in a year filled with troubling financial news for Wyoming.

 

The first $6 million dollars that is transferred will go to local cities, towns and counties for them to use however they see fit, anything over that will then go toward education. Clontz says that’s a little unusual when compared to how other states distribute lottery revenues.

 

The Legislature passed a bill in 2013 creating the lottery, and tickets first went on sale in August of 2014. There are two multi-state games, Powerball and Mega-Millions, and one Wyoming only game Cowboy Draw.  Another multi-state, Lucky for Life will launch in the fall.