Last year, people in McDowell County bought more scratch-off lottery tickets than those in 40 other North Carolina counties. McDowell was 25th in the big numbers games sales.
In all, McDowell vendors sold $5,898,972 worth of lottery tickets -- $4,463,841 in scratch-off sales and $1,221,969 big prize ticket sales. These figures represent fiscal year 2010, which ended June 30. In other words, on average each McDowell resident spent about $130 on lotto tickets in the past year.
How much have locals won? According to Van Denton, a spokesman for the lottery, $2,942,980 has been paid out to McDowell winners.
The biggest prizes claimed by locals this year have been to Timothy Edwards of Nebo and to Greg Hollifield of Marion, both of whom won $5,000 playing the "$200 million Extravaganza" game. Charles Goree of Marion won $10,000 playing "Powerball."
How much came back to McDowell to support education? Figures for fiscal year 2010 have not been released yet. In 2009, the lottery contributed $1.8 million to local education. About $744,000 supported school construction. The money also funded the positions of 9.26 teachers at a total cost of $503,000.
Lottery revenues enabled 99 kids to go to More at Four classes, at a cost of $471, and provided 96 scholarships, at a cost of $109,000.
Statewide, lotto sales are up 9.9 percent for 2010, according to a press release from the N.C. Education Lottery. 2010 was the fourth consecutive year of increasing lottery revenues. The state sales totals were approximately $1.42 billion. Of that, $419 million went to the State Education Lottery Fund. Another $835 million was paid out to lottery players statewide.
The addition of a major new game, Mega Millions, which added two jackpot drawings each week, was one factor behind the increase in sales, the lottery press release stated. Another factor was a 4 percent increase in retail locations where lottery tickets are sold. As of July 1, 6,267 retail locations across the state sell lottery tickets.
The lottery also transferred $1 million to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services for gambling addiction, education and treatment programs and conducted a $233,000 TV and radio advertising campaign on responsible lottery playing.
"We’re pleased that the lottery continues to grow as our games become more popular with both players and the retailers who sell our tickets," said Tom Shaheen, executive director of the N.C. Education Lottery. "The growth enabled us to produce additional money to support education and we plan to work hard to achieve an even greater return for education this year."
Steve Welker, editor of the Morganton News-Herald, contributed to this story.
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