Economy expected to slow lottery sales

State lottery director Tom Shaheen said Wednesday that lottery officials expect the slowing economy to crimp ticket sales next year.

Officials now project sales of about $1.25 billion between next July and the end of June 2010. The state has budgeted about $1.27 billion in sales for the current fiscal year.

The lottery is on track to meet its sales budget for 2009, a spokesman said.

The news came the same day that Shaheen announced the North Carolina Education Lottery had shifted $99.8 million to public schools statewide in the first three months of the fiscal year – marking the state-run game's largest transfer since its inception two years ago.

Since March 2006, the lottery has raised more than $825 million for schools in North Carolina.