Massachusetts Lottery sales $543.8 million in January

Mass. Lottery sales dip, lower scratch payouts lift January profit

Sales were down at the Massachusetts Lottery last month, but an almost-equal drop in scratch ticket prize claims helped the agency offset the decline and finish January with a greater profit than a year before.

January sales of $543.8 million were down $23.4 million or 4.1% compared to January 2025, Executive Director Mark William Bracken told the Lottery Commission on Tuesday morning. He said the Lottery’s monthly estimated profit was $98.7 million in January, compared to $95.4 million a year earlier.

Assisting that dynamic was a $22.6 million drop in the amount of scratch ticket grand prizes that players claimed in January.

The Lottery paid out $18.4 million on instant ticket grand prizes last month, compared to “the much higher” $41 million paid out in January 2025, Bracken said.

For all products, the Lottery’s prize payout percentage was 73.98% last month, compared to “the much higher” 76.02% in January 2025, he said.

Through seven months of fiscal year 2026, the Lottery has done roughly $3.52 billion in sales. That’s down $14.9 million or 0.4% compared to the same checkpoint in fiscal 2025 as the Lottery dips behind last year’s pace.

State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg told budget managers to expect the Lottery to turn a net profit of $1.05 billion for fiscal 2026, money that lawmakers dole out to cities and towns as local aid.

She said last week that the Lottery is “currently on track to meet its projection ... despite economic headwinds and continuing impacts from the competitive marketplace.” Goldberg said the Lottery projects flat retail sales in fiscal 2027.

That means “a flat net profit of $1.050 billion,” she said.

Since the introduction of casino-style gambling here in 2015, Goldberg has been warning that the proliferation of gambling options could take a bite out of the Lottery. Her long-sought “iLottery” is slated to go live this summer, estimated to bring in $70 million in net profit in the first year of operation.

Net profit is expected to climb to $180 million for the third year of iLottery, $230 million in the fifth year and nearly $360 million a decade in, Goldberg has said.

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