Lotteries Feel Pinch

January 12, 2009

It seemed that for a while only online gambling was exempt from the recession. While everyone was scrambling to pay their mortgages and credit cards, the online gambling industry was expanding. While other companies were closing their doors, the online gambling industry was excelling. It seemed that the recession had only been good to the online gambling industry � but that seems to be changing.

The online gambling industry is starting to feel the pinch of the recession especially with their lottery sales. According to the Wall Street Journal this week, lottery sales have fallen 2% in the third quarter � which means that all of the programs that lottery sales support are not getting the money that they should be getting.

Many online gambling sites are reporting a decrease in lottery sales as they say that people just aren�t spending their money on things like that when they have more pressing bills on their minds. The problem is that the online gambling sites report that a billion dollar industry is not going to be able to hold up their end of the bargain when it comes to funding. Education is probably the biggest benefactor from lottery sales and for a country that is already almost dead last with their lottery system; this is not the time to be putting less money toward it.

Some online gambling sites are worse off than others. The average might be 2% but places like California and Texas are feeling it worse than the others. Texas has a 4% decrease, and California is feeling a 10% decrease � which is substantially higher than the national average.

Back to January 09 Archive.