(Radio  Iowa) – The Iowa Lottery now has the numbers for the final month of the fiscal year and sales hit a record of nearly 489-point-nine million dollars. Lottery spokesperson Mary Neubauer says they also set a record for payouts to players of nearly 313 million dollars. “Iowa Lottery players claimed 14 prizes of at least 500-thousand during fiscal year 2024, including three prizes of two million dollars,” she says. The Lottery sales for the fiscal year that ended June 30th were one-point-seven percent above last year. Proceeds to the state were more than 100 million dollars. “That ended up being the Lottery’s second best number ever in that category so the lottery raised almost 107 million dollars this year for state causes,” Neubauer says.

Neubauer says the proceeds to the state fell short of a record as scratch tickets were the top seller and they have a smaller margin than other games. Powerball jackpots were a big factor in the record sales. “That game saw its jackpot atop the one billion dollar mark three different times in the year, and that combined with the addition of the new double play option in that game drove Powerball sales up almost 18 percent over the last year,” she says. Two Hy-Vee stores in Cedar Rapids led the top ten list for sales, with each topping the one million dollar mark. “They’ve been at the top of the lotteries list for a few years now they just take great pride in their lottery sales, they know they’re at the top of the game and they want to stay there,” Neubauer says. “And so we love to see that, like the competition even that they have within their own company.”

Another Hy-Vee in Council Bluffs was third on the list and The Albia Road BP station in Ottumwa was fourth in sales.