Where does Pennsylvania Lottery money go when you don’t win?

(WTAJ) — For the 13th consecutive year, the Pennsylvania Lottery has reached over a billion dollars in revenue, but where does that money go?

You may not think about it when you spend $10 on a scratch-off and win only $2, but the money has to go somewhere, right?

In Pennsylvania, like other states, older Pennsylvanians win. The Lottery announced more than one billion dollars were taken in across scratch-offs, Match 5, Cash for Life, etc… and it will benefit older residents in the state.

Here are some other overall highlights from the fiscal year that ran from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024:

• Sales of Scratch-Off games totaled more than $3.1 billion, down by $246 million, or about 7.3 percent, from the previous year. These games account for 65% percent of total traditional sales.
• Sales of Draw Games at Retail — including the PICK family of games and Wild Ball, Treasure Hunt, Cash 5 with Quick Cash, Match 6 Lotto, Millionaire Raffle, Cash4Life®, Powerball®, and Mega Millions® — totaled more than $1.4 billion for the fiscal year, an increase of more than $29 million, or 2.0 percent, from the previous year’s total. During the fiscal year, there were several large Powerball® and Mega Millions® jackpots that drove sales.
• The Lottery’s $975.8 million in online eInstant play increased by more than $103 million, or nearly 12 percent, from the prior fiscal year. Online Draw Game ticket sales totaled $62.9 million, an increase of $12.7 million, or 25.4 percent.

• Sales of Monitor Games, which include Keno and Xpress Sports games, totaled an estimated $49.7 million this fiscal year, a slight decrease of more than $1 million, or 2 percent, from the previous fiscal year.
• More than $3.2 billion in traditional game prizes were paid to winners, a decrease of more than $102 million from the previous fiscal year. A total of 87 winning tickets of $1 million or more were paid to players during the 2023-24 fiscal year.
• More than $862.8 million in prizes were paid out to winners of online eInstant games. This was an increase of $90.5 million from the prior fiscal year.
• Over 10,000 licensed Lottery retailers statewide, many of them small and family-owned businesses, earned an estimated $276.5 million in sales commissions.

“I had one winner say, ‘so my husband threw the ticket in the trash and we were in the trash last night looking for it and we found it,’” Ewa Swope, the PA Lottery’s Press Secretary told Dennis Owens at WHTM .

In Pennsylvania, players have one year — to the day — to cash in on their winning tickets. After that, the money goes back to the lottery fund. That’s money to help older, likely retired, Pennsylvania residents.

WHTM’s Dennis Owens reported that the lottery said on average, they have $18 Million a year in unclaimed prizes. The real number is much higher because 70% of lottery sales are scratch-offs and unclaimed scratch-off jackpots aren’t tracked.

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Scratch off, Cash Five, Powerball, etc… matter not because the PA Lottery announced another billion-dollar revenue that will help older Pennsylvanians.

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