California Lottery Sees Record $5.5 Billion Ticket Sales

The California Lottery posted more than $5.5 billion in total sales during the fiscal year ending June 30, the highest sales total in the state's lottery history.

The Sacrament Bee reports preliminary figures show that's about 10 percent more than the previous year's then-record of $5.03 billion dollars.

Now in its 30th year, the lottery's 2014-15 numbers will generate about $1.3 billion for schools. That's about 1.6 percent of the $83.2 billion overall funding for California K-12 schools in the current budget year.

The California Lottery says driving last year's sales growth were gains in sales of Scratchers tickets, which totaled $3.9 billion.

Lottery officials expect $6 billion in total sales for the current fiscal year, which would mean about $1.4 billion for schools.