The fiscal year for lottery games ended on June 30th and Ohio sales are up. Officials say that the introduction of Keno to the state helped sales go up and they have come close to a record year in lottery sales.

Dennis Berg the Ohio Lottery Finance Director commented that if the state were to take out the game of Keno the sales would have been “virtually flat with last year”. He also stated that they did add a few retailers with Keno that also have the traditional lottery so sales could have been down as well if those establishments did not have the lottery.

The keno machines were installed in the state back in August and play started off slow. But now retailers say that more and more people are playing the keno games. The amount earned by keno is still not what officials projected but it is new money so the lottery totals are still better than last year.

Retailers have now placed new keno machines in place. Operators had to take new classes to learn how to operate the machines. The new machines went online July 1st.






- 2009-07-02