Dueling Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots, and an accompanying surge in scratch ticket sales have powered the Texas Lottery to a single-week record of more than $215 million in total sales for the week just ended, the lottery announced in a news release Tuesday.
The Texas Lottery attained weekly sales of $215,331,576 from Jan. 10-16, the highest total in history and eclipsing the previous record of $213,962,991 attained for the week ending exactly five years earlier on Jan. 16, 2016.
Last week’s historic sales figure marked an increase of $88,090,935 or 69.2% over the same period in 2020, the lottery said.
Both the Mega Millions and Powerball lottery jackpots continue to grow, with the annualized Mega Millions jackpot payoff reaching $865 million as of Tuesday and the comparable Powerball jackpot reaching $730 million. Both totals assume a single winner who chooses to receive the payout in annual payments.
“ Just one week after celebrating a new record week of scratch ticket sales, we are thrilled to announce yet another record-breaking accomplishment, this time for sales across our entire game portfolio,” said Gary Grief, executive director of the Texas Lottery.
“Week after week, the Texas Lottery continues to outpace our annual records for both lottery sales and revenue contributions to public education and veterans in Texas. I could not be prouder of the hard work and contributions by our staff, vendors and retailers in achieving this success.”
Fueled by the largest simultaneous national jackpots since October 2018, draw sales for the week ending Jan. 16 totaled $87,788,743, a 266.8% increase over the same week last year. Mega Millions sales in Texas accounted for $34,387,900 during the week of Jan. 10-16, an 80.8% increase over the week ending Jan. 9, while statewide Powerball sales accounted for $28,049,666, a 63.5% increase over the week prior.
A week after achieving a new scratch ticket sales record, sales for scratch tickets remained strong with $127,542,833 for the week – the third best week in Texas Lottery history.
Through the first 20 weeks of the 2021 fiscal year, the Texas Lottery has already generated more than $2.2 billion in scratch ticket sales and remains in position to shatter its previous annual scratch ticket sales record of $5.556 billion that was achieved in FY 2020.
