Atlantic Lottery has this week published its annual report for 2022/23, returing a record-breaking profit of $492.2m, an increase of $54.1m on its previous high.

Breaking down the numbers, Atlantic Lottery revealed $262.8m was from the destination line of business with the remaining $229.4m from the retail and ilottery sectors.

Broken down by province, Atlantic Lottery returned $160.4m to Nova Scotia, $153.9m to New Brunswick, $148.6m to Newfoundland and Labrador, and $29.3mn to Prince Edward Island to help fund essential services and programs used by Atlantic Canadians.

Atlantic Lottery awarded a further $440.1m in prizes to winners from across Atlantic Canada, more than it awarded in the previous year.

“Atlantic Lottery is pleased to be able to contribute to our regional economy by returning 100 per cent of profit to the provincial governments,” said President and CEO Patrick Daigle.

“In fact, 92 cents out of every lottery dollar stayed in Atlantic Canada in 2022-23 thanks to a combination of prize money, employee salaries and benefits, retailer commissions and regional operations.

“We were also proud to support many diverse community events over the past year through sponsorship and volunteering.”

According to the lottery, net profit surpassed the budgeted amount in 2022-23 by $32.2m thanks to “strong performance” throughout the organization, including the most profitable year to date for Red Shores, which delivered a profit of $5.7m, as well as through the continued growth on the alc.ca platform.

Daigle continued: “While we are pleased by the continued growth in our ilottery business line, we remain concerned about the growing presence of illegal gambling sites in our region.

“Players are not always aware that these illegal gambling sites are not accountable to government regulators, and their profits do not remain in our region.

“Atlantic Lottery is proud to be the only legal and government-regulated provider of online gambling and sports-betting products in Atlantic Canada.”

Daigle made further observations on the lottery’s commitment to healthy play and social responsibility, with several key accomplishments last year including a new healthy play policy.

Such achievements led to endorsements from the World Lottery Association Level 4 Recertification and the RG Check Accreditation from the Responsible Gambling Council.

“We are proud to be recognized for going above and beyond to encourage healthy play by leading accreditation programs,” added Daigle.

“This commitment is at the forefront of everything we do, from providing world-class tools and resources to our players; to providing responsible gambling training to employees, retailers and video lottery operators; to implementing compliance monitoring to ensure age verification protocols are followed.”

Elsewhere, Atlantic Lottery recently signed an agreement with NeoGames to launch the studio’s premium instant games.