Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

CRANSTON - Given the state of the state's economy, state Lottery officials are breathing a sigh of relief.

State revenues from Lottery sponsored gambling are still lagging the $356.4 million projection for this year by $14,126,155, but that is a vast improvement over the $21.3 million gap in February.

And all things considered, a report given a legislative oversight commission on Monday said: "a flat to small growth performance is welcome.''

On the video-gambling front, the report said Twin River and Newport Grand appear to be faring much better than others in the casino industry, including Connecticut's Mohegan Sun which "reported a 15 percent decline over March last year.'' By contrast, the report said: "Twin River is holding its own, and Newport Grand recently had it first increase over last year in a long time.''

At Twin River, the dollars left behind in the 4,751 video-slot machines after winning players had been paid was up by 1 percent, from $7.995 million a year ago to $8.088 million during the week that ended on April 18, after an up and down stretch in which a double-digit gain was followed a week later by a double-digit drop.

Last week was not as good a week for Newport Grand: net terminal income dropped 11 percent. But as state Lottery director Gerald Aubin noted in his report, the Newport slot-parlor posted a 2 percent gain only three weeks earlier.

Gross sales from the video-slot play at Twin River and Newport Grand and the sale of traditional Lottery tickets generated $2,012,312,337 in gross sales through April 18, compared to $1,874,229,885 at the same point a year ago.

And here are a few other factoids from the report: Since the first Lottery drawing on May 30, 1974, the Lottery has had gross sales of $17.2 billion, paid out $11.8 billion in prizes and turned $3.3 billion over to the state treasury.

 Tags  Mohegan Sun Newport Grand Twin River

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