Georgia lottery officials face lawmakers’ questions on slowdown, spending

The head of the Georgia Lottery painted a rosy picture of the lottery’s contribution to education at a Georgia House committee hearing Wednesday, but lawmakers pressed Georgia Lottery Corporation CEO Gretchen Corbin about spending and long-term revenue trends amid a slowdown in lottery sales. The Georgia House Regulated Industries Committee hearing served as a financial […]

Georgia House Regulated Industries Committee Chair Rep. Alan Powell, a Hartwell Republican, said the committee's concerns revolved around declining profits amid increased spending. Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder

The head of the Georgia Lottery painted a rosy picture of the lottery’s contribution to education at a Georgia House committee hearing Wednesday, but lawmakers pressed Georgia Lottery Corporation CEO Gretchen Corbin about spending and long-term revenue trends amid a slowdown in lottery sales.

The Georgia House Regulated Industries Committee hearing served as a financial checkup for what is now the state’s only major current form of legal gambling, coming amid the ongoing work of the House Study Committee on Gaming in the State of Georgia, which is tasked with researching the impacts of expanded gambling. Another committee, the Senate Study Committee on Making Georgia the No. 1 State for Tourism, recently published its legislative recommendations, which include expanding gambling through legalizing sports betting.

“Concerns that I had are we’re looking at a decrease in the net (revenue) as we see the (expenses) increase going up, and I think that’s where the genesis of a lot of the questions is going to be coming from,” said Hartwell Republican state Rep. Alan Powell, the chair of the committee.

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Corbin said the Georgia Lottery has returned more than $30 billion to the state for education since its inception in 1993, supporting over 2.25 million students through the HOPE Scholarship and Grant programs and more than 2.2 million children through the Georgia Pre-K program.

“We are thinking of these students when we walk into the building. We’re thinking of the students when we walk out of the building, and we see, and we know, and we hold tightly to our responsibility to provide the greatest amount of revenue to send to you and the governor to allocate for education,” Corbin said.

Corbin also touted what she called the lottery’s strong start to the current fiscal year, with a revenue of $414.8 million in the first quarter and a profit of $51 million, which she said was the strongest in the lottery’s history.

Despite the positive tone, lawmakers pressed Corbin on a recent slowdown in traditional lottery sales  — for fiscal year 2024, gross ticket sales decreased by $132.8 million, or 2.2% as compared to 2023, according to the Georgia Lottery’s 2025 financial report. 

Corbin said the recent fluctuations are due to economic “anomal(ies),” including the COVID-19 pandemic and years with unusually high numbers of large-jackpot draws, such as six separate $1 billion jackpots in one period.

“During that year, we had over six $1 billion jackpots, and so that was an anomaly. The industry had never seen over six $1 billion jackpots,” Corbin said.

Lawmakers also questioned lottery officials on the substantial budget for advertising and vendor contracts — the lottery spent $53 million on marketing last year. Committee members asked about a dip in net returns, raising questions about the return on investment from the marketing’s sizable budget.

“It seems like the education is getting the crumbs here,” said Rep. Karen Bennett, a Stone Mountain Democrat.

Corbin defended the spending, pointing to independent evaluations showing that the value exceeds the cost.

The committee floated the possibility of conducting a performance audit to evaluate the efficiency of the Georgia Lottery’s operations.

“I would like to maybe, for the purview of the committee, that maybe it is time that we see a performance audit done to evaluate certain things, if that’s the wishes of the committee,” Powell said before adjourning.