The New Hampshire Lottery is the Oldest Lottery in the Country

I had no idea that the New Hampshire Lottery was the oldest legal lottery in the United States.

It was all a matter of New Hampshire needing to raise money for education. State Representative Larry Pickett of Keene, New Hampshire, thought a sweepstakes would be a good and voluntary way of raising money for education. He was persistent, and between 1953 and 1963, he tried to pass a Sweepstakes bill five times. He finally got it accepted in 1963, with most New Hampshire communities in favor of starting a lottery. In 1964, the first Sweepstakes tickets went on sale, and New Hampshire schools have been benefiting ever since.

As with all things, the New Hampshire Lottery has changed a lot over the past 60 years. 60 years ago, they only had one type of ticket that cost $3 each. Now there are different lotto-type games and tons of scratch games. New Hampshire lottery is even into digital platforms of sports betting and iLottery. The first year it was offered (1964), they had $5.7 million in sales, and last year the lottery collected over $603 million.

READ MORE: New Hampshire Scores Big as the Richest State in the US

Even if you play the NH Lottery while traveling through the state, the revenue from sales all stays in New Hampshire and continues to benefit the educational system. It's been the lottery's sole mission, to maximize revenues to aid public education. Well done New Hampshire Lottery! To date, the lottery has raised over $2.6 billion for the Granite State.

New Hampshire was the first, but not the last.

New Hampshire led the way and was the first lottery in the United States. But since then, 45 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have all followed suit. Happy 60th birthday, New Hampshire Lottery!