As the mainstay of legal gambling in Georgia, the Georgia Lottery continues its run of record-breaking profits. After a record-shattering fiscal year which saw quarter after quarter raking in profits, the lottery kicked off the latest fiscal year with its highest profit windfall: $389.9 million.
Georgia Lottery helps fund education
The Georgia Lottery reported that it had transferred that amount to the state’s education fund, the longtime beneficiary of lottery profits in the state. The profits fund HOPE Scholarships and Pre-K programs. Since its founding in 1992, the Georgia Lottery has been an extremely profitable venture for the state — and put a measurable margin on the teeming market of Georgians eager to cash in.
Flirting with gambling
In a way, the Georgia Lottery was the state legislature playing footsie with legal gambling while still icing out venues like sportsbooks and racebooks. While a pair of measures poised to allow legal Georgia online sportsbooks and casinos to establish a foothold in the state failed last year, the topic has been broached many times during legislative sessions over the years — and likely will in 2023, as well.
If Georgia legislators were looking to increase the state’s revenue (spoiler alert: they are), incorporating legal gambling into the fold would be a plug-and-play option. With the lottery rolling in record-setting profits each fiscal year, it illuminates a pair of pretty apparent facts: Georgians enjoy gambling, and expanded legal gambling options would bring more taxable opportunities to the state.
By flirting with legal gambling in the form of a state-run lottery, Georgia whet the appetite for wagers but hasn’t satiated it quite yet. It’s why proposals for casinos and online gambling keep coming up legislatively — and will continue to build steam and support.
It’s simply a matter of the legislators listening to their constituents and the marketplace.
Georgia gambling is popular, profitable
The winds of change are rolling into the South, and with Georgia looking to expand its role as a technology and media hub in the region, putting the decision of legal gambling in Georgia into the hands of voters makes sense. Until then, the lone operator will be the Georgia Lottery, which has shown time and time again that gambling is popular and profitable in the Peach State.
