Record N.J. lottery sales are no windfall; worst returns in 40 years fuel vendor criticism

Ticket sales have topped $3 billion for the first time, but New Jersey’s lottery expects to send only $930 million back to the state to help fund social service programs — the lowest rate of return in nearly four decades.

In the past, record sales most often translated to record dollars back to the state for school nutrition programs, education scholarships and housing for disabled veterans, money required to be funneled to the budget by the law that created the lottery itself.

But New Jersey isn’t expecting those record sales to translate to the state budget for fiscal 2015, which ended in June, the first full year since the lottery’s sales and marketing was outsourced to a group that spent heavily on lobbying firms led by Governor Christie’s closest allies.

But for all its shortfalls in payments to the state, the group hasn’t paid a dollar in penalties, thanks to a buffer in its 15-year contract with the state that was approved by Christie, a Republican, over the objections of the Democratic-controlled Legislature.