CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Revenue from the West Virginia Lottery was $93.7 for August, members of the state Lottery Commission were told Wednesday during their monthly meeting in Charleston.
Deputy Lottery Director for Finance Dean Patrick said Limited Video Lottery brought in the most revenue at $38.2 million followed by Racetrack Video Lottery ($35.2 million), traditional lottery games ($17 million), table games ($2 million), the Greenbrier ($890,000), sports betting ($203,000) and online gambling ($102,000).
Patrick said the general lottery fund was down approximately $1.1 million for the month because Racetrack Video Lottery at the casinos hasn’t hit projections for the fiscal year.
“The Lottery Fund is down about $2.7 million year-to-date,” Patrick said.
Limited Video Lottery, the neighborhood slot machine parlors, has exceeded estimates so far this budget year, Patrick said.
“In the Excess Lottery Fund we’re up for the month about $5.2 million and that’s primarily due to Limited Video Lottery performing better than our projections and we’re up about $9.4 million year-to-date in the Excess Lottery Fund,” Patrick said.
The Lottery Commission also approved the annual license renewals of the companies that own the casinos in Charles Town, Chester, Wheeling and Nitro Wednesday. The companies have until Sept. 30 to pay the annual licensing fee of $2.5 million per casino. Only Mountaineer Racetrack and Casino in Chester had paid the fee as of Wednesday.
Commission removes 4 players from exclusion list
The commission voted Wednesday to remove four former casino players in West Virginia from the statewide exclusion list.
The four, three of whom live in Pennsylvania and one in Maryland, have been on the list for more than six years. They’ll now be allowed to return to West Virginia’s casinos.
Myers allowed to approve licenses provisionally
State Lottery Director John Myers received the okay Wednesday to approve various lottery licenses provisionally. Myers told the commission delays caused by the ongoing pandemic has created a need for such a provision.
“This would allow me to approve a license provided that they’ve made their payments, we’ve done our review and then it comes back in front of the commission the next month,” Myers said.