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The New Jersey Lottery had a record-breaking tear in 2023, with ticket sales hitting an all-time high of $3.73 billion. The lottery's audit for the fiscal year 2023, released this week, reveals a 2.55% increase in sales compared to the previous year. This robust growth has led to the Lottery's most substantial contribution ever to New Jersey's public employee pension system, amounting to $1.17 billion.
The sales boom was primarily driven by the Mega Millions game, which saw a staggering 99.4% increase in sales, totaling $293.7 million. Powerball also had a strong year, with sales reaching $308.6 million, a 28.1% increase over the previous year. Scratch-off sales exceeded $2 billion for the third consecutive year, while classic numbers games Pick-3 and Pick-4 experienced a slight dip in sales.
Executive Director James Carey expressed his satisfaction with the successful year, attributing the Lottery's success to both its retail partners and vendors. He also stressed the importance of keeping the gains from multistate game sales in perspective with New Jersey-only game sales.
In FY23, New Jersey players won a total of $2.23 billion in prizes. There were 221 winners who bagged more than $100,000, including 58 players who took home prizes worth $1 million or more.
The New Jersey Lottery is a self-supporting state division funded by revenue generated from game sales. It is the State’s fifth largest individual revenue producer and has contributed over $32.5 billion to the State since its inception in 1970. These funds help support a range of programs and services, including the public employee pension system for teachers, police, fire personnel and other public employees.