Yesterday an article caught my eye about a rise in sales for state lotteries as people look for quick wins in face of tough economic times. Our data shows that Internet visits to Lotteries websites were up 7% year over year. Keep in mind that we aren’t capturing scratch ticket customers. You don’t need to go online to find out if you won on a scratch ticket!
So visits are up a modest 7% to Lotteries websites – not bad given that consumers are cutting back on discretionary spending.
My father used to tell me “Lotteries are a tax on the stupid”. I looked through our demographic and lifestyle data and couldn’t find any correlation between visits to lottery websites and IQ, education or the like. However, I did notice an interesting change. A larger share of visits to lottery websites is coming from wealthier Internet users.
The following chart shows the percentage change in the share of visits to websites in the Lotteries category by Household Income bracket. While we have seen a decrease in visits from those earning less than $30,000, households earning over $150,000 per year show the greatest gains. Perhaps the wealthy are looking to make up some of their stock market losses?