On Saturday, March 3, the North Carolina Education Lottery set another record, hitting $20 billion in sales.

“This is an exciting milestone for the lottery,” said executive director Alice Garland. “It’s evidence that our effort to create fun and exciting games for our players is working.”

The lottery started selling games March 30, 2006 and has increased sales every year since inception. It reached $20 billion in sales in just 4,357 days. Those sales resulted in the lottery raising over $5.6 billion for education in North Carolina.

“We attribute this milestone to the fact that we’re constantly looking for opportunities to engage our players,” Garland said. “Whether it’s offering new ways to play or giving away innovative prizes, we want to make sure our players have a chance to dream a little.”

At any given time, the lottery offers 50 different scratch-off tickets at multiple price points. It launches new games the first Tuesday of every month. The lottery has three multi-state draw games and four state draw games including Keno, which launched in October.

The lottery also makes sure it offers once-in-a-lifetime prizes. It leverages marketing partnerships to offer unique experiences for second-chance drawings. For example, players had the chance to be the Honorary Starter or Grand Marshal at the NCEL 200 NASCAR race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, and one lucky player won Panther season tickets for twenty years.

Since inception, the lottery has given away over $12 billion worth of prizes.

“When our players are excited about the games and prizes we offer, sales increase and that means more money for education,” Garland said.