Schools benefit from growing interest in lottery
By Ryan Menezes, Los Angeles Times
After years of decline, the California Lottery is booming. The jackpots are bigger, and that’s drawing more players and excitement.
The turnaround is due to changes made to the lottery in 2010, when revenues were on the decline. The changes brought bigger prizes, but they also altered the formula for how much revenue schools receive. And the long-term effect of those changes is far from clear.
With lottery revenue booming, the money sent to schools has increased. In the 2011-12 fiscal year, the lottery wrote a check of $1.3 billion to California public education, the 12th straight year that the lottery contributed more than $1 billion. But the gap between the share of lottery revenue going back to prizes and the percentage sent to public education is widening, according to audited financial reports the lottery publishes on its website.
