The final numbers are in from the 2007 -- 2008 fiscal year for the lottery. Another decent year -- up 5.9 percent from the previous year. The best showing since 2004/2005. Other states are seeing similar growth.

  From a recent story in the Hartford Courant:

Even as soaring gasoline prices, mounting home foreclosures and bank losses throw the national economy into a tailspin, the lotteries of Connecticut and its neighboring states are booming.

Connecticut's 2008 lottery revenue of almost $1 billion is a new record, making Lotto tickets and scratch games a kind of reverse barometer of the U.S. economy.