US citizens spent $53 billion on lottery tickets in 2010, with $33 billion paid out in prizes and $17.5 billion in profits for the states. 43 states, plus territories, have lotteries, with scratch-offs, lotto, and daily prizes. The US government also runs the Diversity Visa lottery, awarding 55,000 permanent resident visas annually. Seven states don’t have lotteries.
With most US states operating state lotteries, lottery ticket sales are brisk across the country. In 2010, citizens spent just over $53 billion US dollars (USD) on tickets. For that same year, winning ticket holders were paid just under $33 billion in prize money. After accounting for administrative costs of about $2.5 billion, this left the states with $17.5 billion in profits.
Learn more about lotteries in the United States:
A total of 43 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands all host government-sanctioned lotteries. The lottery ticket mix includes scratch off tickets for instant wins, lotto prizes and even a range of daily prizes. Each state or territory that has a lottery operates its own lottery website, and the US government maintains a website that contains links to each of the lottery sites operated by individual states and territories.
The seven states that don’t have state lotteries — Alabama, Mississippi, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Hawaii and Alaska — have all voted at least once on the issue of a lottery, with the measure sometimes narrowly defeated.
The US government operates a different type of lottery from state lotteries. Run by the Department of State, the Diversity Visa lottery is conducted each year and awards a total of 55,000 permanent resident visas to immigrants from countries that have relatively low immigration rates into the United States. This annual lottery is sometimes known as the green card lottery.
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