Kentucky Lottery sales topped $2B in 2025. How much are players winning?

For the fourteenth year in a row, the Kentucky Lottery saw record-breaking sales in 2025, drawing in more than $2 billion dollars, a 2.8% increase over the previous fiscal year.

Online sales were a key driver of that growth, with Kentucky’s auditor reporting a 25.8% year-over-year increase.

So, how much are Kentuckians spending on lottery games, and where is the money going? The Herald-Leader requested sales figures from the Kentucky Lottery for the 2025 calendar year. Here’s what they show.

How much money did the Kentucky Lottery bring in last year?

According to data sent by Kentucky Lottery spokesperson Terry Sebastian, the games saw another year of record sales.

Here’s a look at how much money the lottery brought in throughout 2025, by the numbers:

• Total sales of more than $2.25 billion, a new record for the agency.
• More than $387.5 million was sent to the state for college scholarships and grants.
• The Kentucky Lottery produced 20 millionaires. Examples include a Montgomery County woman who initially craved a Blizzard from Dairy Queen when she bought a ticket on a whim.
• Players won more than $1.68 billion in prizes, an all-time record amount, according to the lottery.
• As many as 127 players won $100,000 or more in 2025.
• iLottery instant play sales (online sales) brought in $889,414,000.
• Draw game sales, such as for the Powerball, brought in $467,391,000. These games often feature large, growing jackpots, with the trade-off being that the odds are steep. The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are roughly 1 in 292 million.
• Scratch-off game sales, which typically have better odds but relatively smaller prizes, totaled $897,131,000 in 2025.
• Commission and incentive payments to lottery retailers reached more than $81.1 million. Stores typically get a 5% commission on the sale of all lottery products, along with other incentives.

How much money are Fayette County players spending on games?

Sales figures from the Kentucky Lottery show players in Fayette County spent a total of $81,215,068 on games last year. That figure encompasses all tickets purchased at Kentucky Lottery retailers located here.

• Sales totals for scratch-off games: $51,753,125
• Sales totals for draw games: $29,461,943

How much lottery money are colleges and universities receiving?

Funding education is a point of pride for the Kentucky Lottery. Its sales send hundreds of millions of dollars to grants and scholarships for college students every year.

According to the Kentucky Lottery, the money goes to fund programs such as the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES), the Teacher Scholarship, the Dual Credit Scholarship Program, the Kentucky Tuition Grant, Kentucky National Guard Tuition Award Program, the Work Ready Kentucky Scholarship and the College Access Program.

However, some critics say lottery sales extract money from low-income and more diverse communities, transferring it to wealthier communities.

For example, a 2022 review by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland found that lottery retailers are disproportionately clustered in low-income neighborhoods in nearly every state.

Data from the Kentucky Lottery shows several Lexington-area colleges and universities received significant amounts of grant and scholarship funding through sales proceeds in 2025:

• University of Kentucky: 18,116 grants and scholarships worth $51,726,128
• Transylvania University: 1,442 grants and scholarships worth $4,305,801
• Bluegrass Community and Technical College: 12,750 grants and scholarships worth $12,968,205

If you or someone you know has a problem with gambling, help is available at 1-800-522-4700.

Do you have a question about Lexington or Kentucky for the Herald-Leader? We’d like to hear from you. Fill out our Know Your Kentucky form or email ask@herald-leader.com.

Aaron Mudd

Lexington Herald-Leader

Aaron Mudd was a service journalism reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader, Centre Daily Times and Belleville News-Democrat. He was based at the Herald-Leader in Lexington, and left the paper in February 2026. Support my work with a digital subscription