Mississippi collects $129M from lottery in 11 months

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi has collected more than $129 million from the state lottery during the first 11 months of the budget year.

The Mississippi Lottery Corporation said in a news release Thursday that the state collected nearly $14.2 million from the games in May.

State law says that the first $80 million collected from the lottery each year goes to roads and bridges. After that, the money goes to education.

Mississippi legislators voted in 2018 to create a lottery, and the first tickets were sold in November 2019.

The lottery is one of many sources of money for state government. The current state budget is more than $6 billion.