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“We are pleased to be able continue to raise funds to benefit Mississippi’s roads, bridges and education,” said MLC President Tom Shaheen. “Yesterday, the Mississippi Department of Transportation announced the awarding of initial paving contracts using lottery dollars. It is exciting to play a part in these developments that will benefit Mississippians!”

Lottery Director Bishop Woosley said lower gas prices and the closing of casinos likely had a positive impact on lottery sales since other forms of entertainment are currently closed.

Oliver Dowden, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said: “Since the National Lottery began in 1994, its dedicated players have raised more than £40 billion for good causes across the UK, making an enormous difference to people’s lives and the issues they care about.

Why is the NC Education Lottery still operating? “Just like all other state agencies, the lottery also is striving to continue operations to meet its mission, raising money for education programs," wrote lottery spokesperson Van Denton.  “We encourage people to have a budget and only spend their entertainment money, their discretionary income on lottery tickets. The money raised this year is needed for education programs that are depending on those funds this year, he said.”

The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery has weathered the coronavirus crisis for the most part so far, despite the pandemic having a devastating impact on the nation's lottery industry, lottery Director Bishop Woosley said

“This pandemic has dramatically exposed the limitations and vulnerabilities of the lottery’s all-cash, in-person business model," Treasurer Deborah Goldberg said. “All of our daily patterns of life have changed, if a consumer would normally go into a store twice a day to purchase products, that’s not the case anymore," said Michael Sweeney, executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission. Goldberg is urging lawmakers to move forward with legislation to modernize the state’s lottery system and go online. “The ability to process cashless payments and to sell our products online would have undoubtedly helped to mitigate our losses," Goldberg said.

We are the only gambling operator that absolutely regulates returns of more than 50% of its earnings to players in the form of winnings. In addition, another 33% of our income goes to support sports in our country. These commitments are the reason why the company does not have significant funds to invest in promoting our products or in modern retail outlets, as our competitors managed to do recently ”, said Damyan Damyanov, Executive Director of BST "However, all participants in our games can be proud because with every bet they place, they support mass and professional sports in our country. Bulgarians can feel calm because we are steadfastly following the principles of safe and responsible play, ”he added.

“We get a lot of money from the lottery,” said Emily House, Deputy Executive Director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and the Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation in Nashville.  “Since the inception of the lottery scholarship program in 2004, we have done over $5 billion in scholarship aid,” House said. The concept started in Georgia in the 1990s with the HOPE Scholarship program. Now, Tennessee is one of more than 30 states that dedicates some amount of lottery profits to education.

Through fiscal year 2019, the Hoosier Lottery had transferred more than $6 billion to the state of Indiana, including contributions of $887.6 million to the Teachers’ Retirement Fund, $699.7 million to local police and firefighters’ pension funds and $4.4 billion to the Build Indiana Fund. Sarah M. Taylor, executive director of the Hoosier Lottery, said in a news release that the lottery’s impact on Indiana over the last 30 years has been significant. “We are so proud of the revenue we’ve generated for the state, and that our revenue is being used to support the pension plans for our retired teachers, police officers and firefighters,” Taylor said. 

"The Illinois Lottery marked its 45th birthday last year, but there were plenty of other reasons to celebrate in 2019," Illinois Lottery Acting Director Harold Mays said, in the news release. "We want to celebrate our players, our winners, our retail partners and the contributions made by the people of Illinois to education and special causes through purchasing Lottery tickets."

“January 20 will be our 16th anniversary, and just as it was on Day 1, everything we do is focused on our larger mission to serve Tennessee by generating proceeds for education,” TEL President and CEO Rebecca Hargrove said. “We will continue to develop new and innovative products and services that support those initiatives.”