NJ Lottery sales drop, still top $3.6B – here’s what you bought

$2.06 billion, down 0.6% but over $2 billion for a second straight year. Carey said the $5 Big Spin game – in which a revealed code from the ticket got entered online, setting up a roulette wheel to spin and display a prize – has been popular. Grand prize winners attend an in-person event and spin a big mechanical wheel to determine what they win.

$432 million, down 4.5%. Pick 3 and Pick 4 were down, after seeing increased play during the height of the pandemic. Carey called the decline “normalization after what had been an extraordinary year.”

$274 million, down 5.6%. Changes to Pick 3 and Pick 4 are being made in November.

$241 million, up $65 million or 37%. The multistate jackpot game added a third drawing each week.

$157 million, down 12.7%.

$147 million, down 31%. While fiscal 2022 was down, fiscal 2023 surely got an early boost through sales for the $1.28 billion jackpot won Friday by a single ticket sold in Illinois.

$111 million, up 1.2%. Carey said it’s a game meant to be played in social spaces and that sales are expected to improve further as the pandemic has less influence on people’s habits.

$62.8 million, up 10%. Changes were made to make the game slightly more winnable by reducing the matrix of numbers to choose from and added extra prizes.

$58 million, down 1.5%.

$46 million, up 10%. Like Quick Draw, what the lottery calls a social space game played most often in places like VFWs and Elks clubs. Some changes were made to the game.

$39 million, up 35%.

$3.25 million. There were five early-bird drawings for $25,000 prizes, leading up to the $2 million grand prize on New Year’s Day. Raffle tickets cost $20. The lottery anticipated ending sales at 500,000 tickets but sold only around 162,500. “Not what we were hoping for,” Carey said. “We learned some good lessons from it. Maybe we’ll see a raffle at some point in the future. Not this year.”