resorts world casino cash ny lottery tickets

Each year, there are between 35 and 45 new instant scratch off games. The games kept coming with new additions like Mega Millions in 2002, Sweet Million in 2009 and Powerball in 2010. Then came Pick 10, Take 5 and new instant-play technology that made it easier for retailers to sell scratch offs and catapulted instant game sales from $298 million in 1994 to more than $1 billion in 1997.

The subsequent game “Daily Numbers,” introduced in 1980, and Win 4 a year later set off “unprecedented growth” according to the New York Lottery. Since then, the Empire State has repeatedly upped the ante.

New York State amended its constitution by referendum in 1967 to allow the Lottery. And while a portion of profits at the state’s existing slot-machine parlors go to the state’s floundering multi-billion dollar racing industry, it’s unclear whether those “racinos” and the full casinos that could come next will save racing or put the final nail in its coffin. Gambling facilities have created jobs, but have also offered new temptations for habitual gamblers wishing to test their luck - some of whom end up losing their shirts.

But state funding for education, which is the stated sole purpose for the lottery, has actually decreased in recent years even as state gaming revenue has soared. The state has touted gambling’s contributions to education, job creation and horse-racing as reasons to raise the stakes. Gaming companies, contractors, lobbyists and politicians are so far the clearest-cut winners, along with the few, individual jackpot winners. But unlike DiMauro’s tracking of wins and losses, determining whether New York State’s nearly 50-year-old gaming experiment has broken even is no simple calculation. With chips already on the table, New York is deciding whether to double down on an experiment with state-sponsored gambling that began in 1967 with the New York Lottery.

Resorts world casino cash ny lottery tickets