Daily News
Booming business at the Aqueduct racetrack racino helped push total state lottery sales up 12% in 2012, the Daily News has learned.
In its first full year of operation, the Resorts World Casino at Aqueduct generated a hefty $667.7 million in net sales, according to stats the state lottery provided.
Aqueduct’s take was more than 37% of the $1.8 billion in total net combined revenue generated by the nine racetrack virtual casinos statewide.
All told, the casino net revenue was up 42% over 2011 because of Aqueduct, with all but one of the nine racinos showing growth. The big loser was Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway, which lost business to Aqueduct.
The Yonkers casino saw net revenue drop 13.4% in 2012 over 2011, though the $540.9 million it took in easily made it the second most successful of the racinos.
With the state looking to legalize up to seven full-blown casinos, racino operators are hoping they will be allowed to upgrade, rather than face more competition.
Meanwhile, most traditional lottery games actually saw declines or flat sales in 2012, even as total net revenue reached a record $7.3 billion, up 6.5% from $6.8 billion in 2011.
With the racinos included, lottery sales hit $9 billion, up 12% from the $8.1 billion in 2011.
The jump in traditional lottery sales was driven by huge jackpots in the multistate Powerball game.
Powerball’s net revenue in New York was $464.6 million, up 80.1% from 2011.
Powerball’s success was a detriment to other games, including the other multistate big-jackpot game, Mega Millions.
With $416.9 million in net revenue, Mega Millions saw its sales drop a slight 0.3%. The venerable Lotto game continued its steady decline with $113.9 million in sales, down 11.4% from $128.5 million in 2011.
Sweet Million, Numbers, Win 4, Take 5, and Pick 10 also saw sales drop in 2012.
Experts say the proliferation of casino and big jackpot games has saturated the market and affected many of the games.
Some were immune. The Keno-like Quick Draw game saw sales dump 14% to $552 million in 2012.
And instant scratchoff games, which continue to drive the Lottery, saw sales jump 6.2% to $3.7 billion.