Massachusetts: New Online Lottery Brings In $139.4M in Sales in Under Five Weeks

Massachusetts online lottery sales reached $139.4 million in the platform’s first weeks, from its July 27 launch through August 29, 2026, according to the Massachusetts Lottery.

Lottery Executive Director Mark William Bracken presented the numbers to the State Lottery Commission on September 22, 2026, in his monthly report. They fall in the Lottery’s August reporting period, which ran from July 26 to August 29 and included the launch week. The platform is open to players 21 and older.

But sales are not the same as money the state keeps. By the Lottery’s own estimate, online games earned about $10.6 million in profit over the same stretch, and even that number is preliminary.

eInstant games drove almost all of it

Nearly all of the online sales, $137.0 million, came from eInstant games, according to the report. The two other online-only games, Mass 3 and Mass 4, sold $104,510 and $92,805.

Why sales and profit are so far apart

Sales tell you how much people spent on games. Profit is what remains after winners are paid and costs are covered.

Prizes take up most of that gap. The report estimated online prize payouts at 91.36% of sales for the period, well above the 74.57% for games sold in stores.

The report put online net profit for the period at an estimated $10.6 million, noting that the estimates do not include accruals for prizes that have been won but not yet paid.

Bracken expects that figure to shrink. Once the August bills are paid, he told the commission, online profit is “realistically … somewhat closer to $8 million,” State House News Service reported.

Store sales slipped

While the online platform was getting started, sales at traditional Lottery retailers fell. Retail sales were $30.1 million lower than in the same period a year earlier, which ran from July 27 to August 30, 2025, according to the report. State House News Service put retail sales for the period at roughly $540 million.

Taken together, online and retail sales left overall unadjusted sales $109.3 million higher than a year earlier. Profit, however, moved the other way. The Lottery estimated net profit for the period at $108.9 million, about $5.5 million below the $114.4 million it made a year earlier, as estimated retail profit fell by $16.2 million.

Powerball was one of the weaker games, with combined store and online sales down $7.3 million. Bracken blamed the jackpot, not a shift to online play. The drop was “primarily due to the jackpot,” he said, according to State House News Service. “It’s not like those sales were transferred over to the Powerball online.”

The report also compares the two Powerball jackpots. This year’s reached $1.04 billion before it was won on August 12, while last year’s hit $1 billion on August 30.

Too early to judge

These are early results. They cover only the launch through August 29, and the profit figures are still estimates. They offer a first look at how online and store sales are moving, not a final verdict on the launch.

Featured image: The Massachusetts State House in Boston. Photo: Christian David / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)