The Massachusetts State Lottery is poised to shatter US and even international sales records, with a new instant ticket that is on track to generate more than $1bn in sales. The ticket is now being studied by other US lotteries as they grapple with declining sales in the face of rising consumer prices and a country-wide economic slowdown.

State lotteries across the US are turning to ever-higher priced instant tickets, sometimes up to US$20 each, and innovative marketing tricks, in their bid to find new growth in an era of stagnating revenues.

In a sign the recent boom-times for US lotteries are decisively over, the leading state lottery in the country is slashing its expenses after seeing revenues drop precipitously in recent weeks. The Massachusetts State Lottery’s decision to slash millions from its budget comes just weeks after it unveiled a new slate of products aimed at keeping sales growing in a shrinking economy.

Massachusetts may be one of the last holdouts in the US against casino liberalisation, but a new study claims that residents of the state are helping fuel the expansion of the casino industry elsewhere in New England. The findings of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth report, and further figures showing booming lottery ticket sales, suggest that the debate over expanded gambling is likely to continue to simmer in the state, despite the recent defeat of a proposal to legalize resort casinos.

Sales of lottery tickets in the United States have dropped in the last year in more than half the states that take part in the game, according to a new study.

State lottery sales across the US fell during the first three months of the year, the latest sign that the economic downturn is taking a toll on a broad swath of the gaming industry, newly released statistics show. Still, a few state lotteries players, including a major Northeastern state, bucked the trend through aggressive marketing of one of the lottery sector’s hottest products.

State lotteries across the US, after relentlessly pushing higher priced instant tickets, are now finding sales success with less expensive offerings amid the worst recession in generations.

The global recession is taking a toll on lottery sales in the US, dashing hopes that gamblers would turn to instant tickets and Keno as a cheap escape from the economic gloom.

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last week put his signature to two bills that would ‘modernize’ the state lottery by allowing higher jackpots, as well as authorizing the cash-strapped state to raise up to $5bn by issuing bonds against future lottery revenues. The measures will require voter approval in a statewide referendum likely to take place mid-2009.

At least a dozen states across the US are weighing multibillion-dollar sales or leases of their lotteries in a growing trend toward privatisation. Moreover, that number may grow, with a number of other states either quietly exploring the option or getting pitched on the benefits of a sale by Wall Street bankers but public opinion is ambivalent at best.