This past week, the Georgia Lottery celebrated its thirty-year anniversary.  Georgia Governor Zel Miller campaigned heavily for the lottery in 1993, even debating his own Methodist pastor on television, in support of a lottery to pay for education expenses in the Peach State.  The lottery sold it’s first ticket in June of 1993.  Since then, the Georgia Lottery has returned $26.5 billion to the state for education.

State lottery officials say that more than 2.1 million Georgia students have benefited from lottery-funded programs such as the HOPE Scholarship, the HOPE Grant, the Zell Miller Scholarship and the Zell Miller Grant.  However, last year the lottery reported a drop in sales that resulted in $71 million drop in education funds over the previous year.

Numbers for fiscal year 2022-2023 will be available on July 15, according to state lottery officials.