RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ The Virginia Lottery says it earned a record $538.6 million in the most recent fiscal year on the strength of sales of instant scratch-off tickets and a huge Mega Millions jackpot drawing in December. The Lottery says the profit for the fiscal year that ended June 30 broke the mark of $487.1 million set in in fiscal 2012. Lottery sales in fiscal 2013 grew 7.2 percent to a record $1.81 billion. Executive Director Paula Otto says the number of people buying Virginia Lottery tickets grew 2 percent. A $636 million Mega Millions jackpot last December, the second-largest lottery prize in U.S. history, resulted in more than $16 million in profit for the Virginia Lottery from jackpot ticket sales. Under state law, all lottery profit goes to Virginia’s K-12 public schools.
