The Tennessee Education Lottery (TEL) has surpassed $2bn in total annual revenue for the 2021 fiscal year as of June 15, marking the first time the operator has reached the milestone.
The fiscal year began with the Lottery’s best ever Q1, from July 1 to September 30, which saw the operator transfer $114.0m to the Lottery for Education Account after bringing in $498.2m in revenue, up 16.8% year-on-year.
The operator went on to break records throughout the fiscal year, including unprecedented Q2 sales of $399.5m in instant games, growth of more than 17% and 20% respectively on its “Cash 3” and “Cash 4” draw-style games, and record weekly instant games sales of $47.1m for the week ending April 10.
In Q3, from January to March, the operator raised a record $140.3m for the Lottery for Education Account, it said.
“This has been quite the year in many ways, but our mission remains the same: to raise funds for the designated education programs we fund,” said the Lottery’s president and chief executive, Rebecca Paul Hargrove.
“This is a great day for students across Tennessee, and we look forward to announcing our fiscal year totals in mid-July.”
The TEL said that more than 1.6 million scholarships and grants have been awarded with Lottery funds since its inception, with more than 150,000 students in Tennessee benefiting in the 2019-2020 school year alone.
In April this year, Tennessee also recorded its billionth dollar in revenue from its sports betting market, which launched in November 2020.