Wyoming Lottery ticket sales grew in 2016, both in Park County and across the state, with the 23 counties that make up the Cowboy State beginning to see financial dividends.

Despite a struggling economy, strong sales enabled WyoLotto to pay off its start-up loan earlier than expected — aided greatly by allure of a $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot in the first part of the year.

Retailers in Park County sold $954,074 worth of lottery tickets and paid out $31,465 in prizes. That total doesn’t reflect a winning ticket of $573,074 sold in Cody in November of 2016, as the prize wasn’t claimed until after the first of the year. Those local retailers received $58,736.49 in commissions, a rate of 6 percent of sales.

Meanwhile, local governments have received $124,874.93 in distributions from the lottery’s first four transfers.

“A lot happened in 2016,” said Jon Clontz, CEO of Wyoming Lottery Corp. “We paid off the loan in April, and that allowed us to start transferring money back to the treasury earlier than we thought.”

The Park County government received $53,239.53 from the first four transfers. The City of Cody, meanwhile, received $42,148.89, followed by Powell with $27,954.62. Meeteetse was awarded $1,447.76, while Frannie rounded out the distribution with $84.13.

That first transfer, originally scheduled for July 5, was made three months early on April 5 and amounted to $1.2 million distributed across the state. WyoLotto has made a transfer every three months since: in July ($915,000), October ($800,000) and January ($640,000), exceeding expectations.

“We’re at about $3.5 million that we’ve transferred so far,” Clontz said. “We had projected $400,000, maybe $500,000 a quarter. That first quarter was an exceptional one, and because game sales were brisk we were able to lower our operating costs, which means more money for the transfer.”

WyoLotto increased its number of retailers in 2016 from 400 to 450. Retailers are now picking up between 8 and 10 percent more revenue off the lottery tickets they sell, according to Clontz.

“It’s great for retailers, because it doesn’t cost them anything,” he said. “We hook up the machines, we take care of the satellite hook-up, we service the machines. It’s money they get to put into their business without cost.”

When Clontz accepted the position of CEO, the mandate he was given was to keep Wyoming money in the state. Instead of having to go elsewhere to play the lottery, residents can now get those tickets here.

“From what I know so far, we’ve taken about 7 percent of the Idaho lottery’s business,” Clontz said. “We’ve taken a good 10 percent from the Colorado lottery, the same with Nebraska. We want everyone to do well, but clearly we’ve cut into their profits by reducing border traffic from Wyoming by people going to those states to get lottery tickets.”

Since launching in 2014, WyoLotto has sold $28 million in winning tickets, $26 million of which has actually been collected. Winners typically have 180 days to claim their prize, regardless of amount; on day 181, the ticket expires.

The money is then moved into an unclaimed prize account that can only be used for special promotions or the Wyoming Department of Health’s problem gambling initiatives.

“That’s been pretty useful in terms of funding DOH and getting our problem gambling program off the ground,” Clontz said.

WyoLotto also introduced a new game in December called “Lucky for Life,” giving players the chance to win $1,000 a day for life. Clontz praised the lottery’s board of directors for its support in developing new games and establishing the problem gambling initiatives.

“Having evolved to where we are, especially with paying off the loan, we’re now able to focus on trying to maximize the transfers, and that’s through ticket sales,” he said. “We’ve had a really successful year, but going forward, the challenge will be to keep people wanting to play the games.”

“The law only allows us to produce draw games, and you can only put the same cigar in so many different cigar boxes; A draw game is a draw game,” he said. “While we have a good selection with the four draw games we offer, I don’t think we could add a fifth one without the games beginning to cannibalize themselves. It’s just the same game packaged differently.”

Clontz said he has some concern that people will tire of having only a handful of games to choose from, leading to a decline in sales. Clontz hopes “Lucky for Life” will complement the other games, when sales are brisk, and serve as a “stability” game, should sales in the other three games begin to lag.

“We had to have a non-jackpot game to do that,” Clontz said, adding, “If the jackpot’s not high, people don’t play as much. That’s one of many reasons we wanted to put ‘Lucky for Life’ in.”

Since scratch games are not yet an option in Wyoming, Clontz said WyoLotto needs to be creative in its thinking in 2017. WyoLotto is seriously considering events like raffles for high-end prizes.

“Raffles don’t bring in a ton of money; they bring in a little bit of a revenue boost that we can give to cities, towns and counties,” Clontz said. “But they create entertainment value for players and keep players interested by giving them variety. That would be the next logical thing for us — unless the legislators, stakeholders and citizens allow us to produce Keno, or something like that.”

He sees Keno as “the next logical, beneficial game” for expanding the lottery portfolio and revenue.

“It just remains to be seen,” he said.

Clontz said 2016 set the bar unrealistically high for WyoLotto transfers, due in large part to January’s gigantic Powerball.

“The Powerball Jackpot and the sales it generated was an unusual situation,” he said. “After that, you’re seeing the result of normal sales. This most recent transfer, sales were very low over the Christmas and Thanksgiving holiday, as they typically are. I think that’s a seasonal issue. Coming into spring and the April transfer, I expect to see that higher. And then in July, I expect to see it back up in the $900,000 range.”

WyoLotto plans to use 2017 to fine-tune its operation.

“I consider 2017 to be a final, stabilizing year, as it’s the fourth year of our start-up,” Clontz said. “It always takes a good four to five years to get a start-up to its pinnacle. We’re working towards that.”