On-line games are played by purchasing a ticket from a licensed sales agents of the lottery which has numbers on it that the player selects, (i.e. 123, for the 3 digit game). The lottery then has a random drawing at a predetermined time to determine a winner which will have a ticket with the numbers that match the numbers randomly selected.
Instant games are played by scratching the latex covering off the play area on the ticket.
The play symbols revealed determine whether the ticket is a winner by matching 3 digits
or beating a corresponding number. There is a wide variety of themes to instant games
and different ways to win with each.
Video Lottery is a lottery game which is available at licensed racetracks sanctioned by
local referendum. It is a keyboard operated video screen which the player wins credits by
betting on the results of the game for replay or cash.
Our evaluation compared five different on-line games. The ranking of the West Virginia Lottery
within the different systems is as follows:
On-Line | ||
Game | Average Annual % Increase in Per Capita Revenues | Rank |
3-digit | 19.92% | 6 of 16 |
4-digit | 20.83% | 2 of 14 |
Lotto | 3.38% | 18 of 27 |
Powerball | 49.05% | 5 of 11 |
Keno | 6.37% | 7 of 12 |
The on-line games of the West Virginia Lottery when put in percentage form and
averaged, indicates performance better than 55% of the systems compared.
The percentage increase or decrease in revenues and ranking for instant games is reported below:
Instant Games | ||
Game Style | Average Annual % Increase in Per Capita Revenues | Rank |
Scratch-off | 6.96% | 17 of 27 |
The video lottery was compared with four other video lottery systems. The ranking of the lottery within these five systems is as follows:
Video Lottery | |
Average Annual % Increase in Per Capita Revenues | Rank |
121.94% | 3 of 5 |
West Virginia Lottery's per capita revenues of their games have shown an increase since their inception. Therefore, the Legislative Auditor's Performance Evaluation and Research Division concludes that the West Virginia Lottery is performing at least average, and sometimes above average when compared to other systems.