Some Of The Biggest Bets In US Are Being Made By Massachusetts Lottery Players

MASSACHUSETTS — The Bay State bets big, really big, on state lottery games, new data shows.

Massachusetts lottery ticket sales totaled $6.13 billion during 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report published Wednesday.

The sales ranked as the fifth-highest in the country, after those in California, New York, Florida and Texas, respectively. California sold $9.28 billion of tickets in 2024, the most recent year for which data was available, according to the Census Bureau.

The Massachusetts sales stand out even higher on a population basis.

According to Patch's number-crunching, people spent $858.72 per capita on Massachusetts lottery tickets during 2024. In California, the spend was $235.74.

In New York, per capita lottery sales were $447.47. In Florida, they totaled $380.39 for the year. The total was $267.89 in Texas, and ratios in other states were similar.

In fact, while Massachusetts ranked fifth in lottery sales for 2024, it was only 16th among the states in population.

Lucky state?

Lottery jackpots have been running large in Massachusetts.

On Tuesday, a player claimed a $100,000 prize in Framingham. On Nantucket, a local diner has sold million-dollar winners five times over the past two years.

Nearly every U.S. state operates a lottery, and the public is shelling out more and more money on the games of chance. Nationwide, ticket purchases totaled roughly $105 billion in 2024, the Census Bureau said in its state survey, double the amount in 2008.

• For 2nd Time This Month, $2 Million Lottery Ticket Sold At MA Diner

Some of that increase stems from states that have recently created public lotteries, such as Arkansas, Mississippi and Wyoming. But most states, including Massachusetts, implemented the games as revenue-producing tools during the 20th century.

Massachusetts uses net profits from the lottery to provide aid to all 351 municipalities in the commonwealth. About 74 cents from each dollar spent here on a lottery game goes into local assistance, a ratio that ties among the third-highest in the U.S., according to the census data.

The only states without a lottery are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah.

See Also:

• $4 Million Scratch-Off Ticket Sold At Tewksbury Store

• Surprising Study Reveals MA’s Big Lottery Habit

• Another Lucky Lottery Winner: Prize Ticket Sold In Natick

• Medford Man Wins Large Lottery Prize