NH Lottery sales rebound after taking huge hit due to pandemic
The New Hampshire Lottery is counting itself lucky.
New Hampshire Lottery officials say like most industries, they felt the impact of the pandemic earlier this year, but things started to bounce back as businesses reopened.
Back in the winter when businesses shut down, lottery sales took a huge hit.
“The first couple weeks of March, it really went from 'Hey, we're OK' to everything goes dark. We saw an absolute cratering of sales," said Charlie McIntyre, executive director of the New Hampshire Lottery.
Essential businesses remained open, but McIntyre said things really rebounded in April when more stores opened up and people started venturing out more. He credits an influx of activity due to people from out of state who chose to quarantine at their New Hampshire vacation homes.
But Keno revenue halted as bars were shut down for months.
“The first couple weeks of March were dismal, devastating, because we had just hit our record week two weeks before COVID hit,” McIntyre said.
McIntyre said Keno has picked up. But with many professional sports games canceled, sports betting suffered -- but they did start to see wagers on different kinds of events.
“We were doing a considerable amount of betting on ping pong and Russian soccer,” McIntyre said.
McIntyre said they’re also seeing success with iLottery, which lets people play online, where there’s been a 110% increase in sales year over year.
McIntyre said the outlook for sports betting is positive but a lot hinges on what ends up happening with the NFL season.