New Lottery Audit Shows Big Increase in Sports BettingBut Video … – Willamette Week

Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade this week released a new financial audit of the Oregon Lottery, the agency that provides the second largest pot of state funding after income taxes.

The new audit shows a second consecutive year of very robust revenues after a period in which the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the bars and taverns that provide most of the agencys income through nearly 11,000 video lottery terminals.

Heres how 2023s $1.678 billion in revenue (down a fraction of 1% from 2022) stacks up historically:

Historical Lottery Revenues

Video lottery revenues have boomed even though agency figures show there are 8.5% fewer machines across the state than there were a decade ago. Thats because people are playing video lottery more: Oregonians $395.66 per capita last year, versus $261.12 in 2014.

Within the numbers, there was actually a tiny decline in net video lottery revenue in 2023, although that game continues to produce about 70% of the agencys net revenue.

One significant change from last year: The numbers show that state revenue from sports betting jumped substantially and far more than budgeted: the state netted $55.3 million from sports bettors, a 72% increase from 2022. That net gain came from a gross total of $565.5 million bet on sports, which is 7.2% higher than the agency budgeted.

Although sports betting accounts for just a small fraction (3.3%) of total lottery sales last year, the agency is counting on young sports bettors to replace some the aging video lottery players over time.

Lottery spokesman Matt Shelby says the agency is pleased with the growth of its sports book, which since 2022 has been operated under a new contract with DraftKings.

We launched with Scoreboard [in 2019] and then switched to DraftKings, Shelby says. In effect, we started over. The player base is still maturing and sports betting is becoming much more mainstream.

Split of lottery sales by game.

The states reliance on gambling makes critics uncomfortable. Oregon is uniquely dependent on lottery tax revenue at the expense of our public health, says Kitty Martz, the executive director of the advocacy group Voices of Problem Gambling Recovery. We need to prevent further public health impact and get some legislation in place.

Martz and other critics have long pointed to the states conflicted position: through the Oregon Health Authority, the state provides mental health services, including funding to treat gambling addiction, as well as providing a variety of other services to families of those afflicted with a gambling addiction. Yet the Oregon Lottery is tasked with raising money for education, economic development, parks and other essential services.

The Lotterys cash has proven irresistible to lawmakers but Martz says it comes at a long-term, hidden cost. Lets look back at the onset of the opioid epidemic, she says. We later vilified big pharma, but where was legislative regulation? The lottery offers an addictive product, self-regulates, and is charged with maximizing profits. We need to better define how that serves the public good.

The audit also included a list of the top 10 video lottery purveyors in the stateand some historical context for how that has changed over time:

Top 10 retailers, 2023

Top 10 retailers, 2014.

Shelby says the enormous increase at the top of the list of lottery purveyors is attributable to a relatively new optioncouriers who buy and redeem lottery tickets for players living in other states and, in some cases, overseas.

All of the top four retailers are associated with a courier service, Shelby says. Its like DoorDash for lottery tickets.

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New Lottery Audit Shows Big Increase in Sports BettingBut Video ... - Willamette Week