In our spotlight on business report.

Lottery fever is at an all time high in New Jersey.

That's thanks to those giant jackpots and attention grabbing mega millions that have been up for grabs.

And according to state records, it's resulting in record sales, raking in more than $3.7 billion this past fiscal year.

And that means the portion of lottery revenues dedicated by law to funding the public worker pension system in the state is also benefiting.

For more on that and how to avoid lottery scams state officials are seeing, I'm joined by budget and finance writer John Reitmeyer John Reitmeyer, good to see you as always.

So I mean, obviously, folks buying lottery tickets is good for the state in a number of ways.

But talk to me about these numbers for the pension system.

Yeah, that's right.

And great to be here also today.

The pension fund since the law was changed in 2017, there's a big portion of the lottery proceeds that fund public worker pensions in New Jersey so that's police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public government workers in New Jersey.

And so when the lottery proceeds are doing well and people are buying lottery tickets and they have been at least when you look at these latest numbers, that's also good for the pension fund more than $1,000,000,000 a record amount was just contributed during the fiscal year that ended on June 30th to help support what taxpayers contribute and then what workers themselves contribute towards their pensions.

And that's a bad spot for the state itself.

The pension fund for a number of years was underfunded by governors and lawmakers going back decades.

And so the state has only recently resumed that practice of making its full annual contributions.

And then under a change that was implemented when Chris Christie was governor.

And this is actually we have Chris Christie to thank for this.

Correct.

So his administration never fully funded the state contribution, but it did make this key policy change, which puts money into the pension fund on a monthly basis from the lottery system.

And so it's good for taxpayers when the lottery is pumping out revenue for the pension fund.

And then this money is also invested in the pension fund.

Last year got 5% annual returns.

So it can it can be a win win for everybody, including for lottery winners.

Yeah, for sure.

Let me shift gears, though, into something that I'm particularly interested in.

And this is just the amount of scams.

So you get that money if you're lucky enough, we know few people win, but you get that money and then there's a lot of people out there looking to separate you from it.

Yeah.

And so that's you know, if you're so fortunate to win the lottery, first of all, the lottery doesn't reach out to you.

They don't know that you won.

Good note.

If somebody is calling you thinking that they want to check in on on you, the lottery is not going to do that.

You actually, you know, present yourself to the lottery with your winning ticket.

So be wary of that.

And then this is just a good best practice in general.

Don't give your information over the phone to anyone.

Credit card, bank account, if they think you won the lottery or just you know, in your everyday life.

But certainly if you've just won the lottery, you might hear from a lot of people.

Family members included.

Financial advisors, just be very wary of those types of things.

As well.

So, okay, I know every once in a while when there's a really big Mega Millions offices are included once in a while, like to get together and buy tickets as a pool.

Are there rules that we should be following there?

I've never really thought about it in this way.

Yeah.

And so it's I know it's a lot of people do it with their family.

There are definitely some best practices that the state lottery has has put out.

And one of those is to be organized, right?

Keep track of exactly who is in your pool, who's paid up and is current on whatever you're collecting.

Pick a leader, so have someone be in charge.

It's usually useful to have that point person and make copies or take photos of all the tickets that you buy on, you know, for these regular drawings like this big one that's that's coming up.

So you know what ticket you have.

And then more importantly, or maybe as importantly as keep your tickets in a secure place, it's great to have a photo that shows you won $1,000,000,000 jackpot, but you need that ticket.

And so those are some of the best practices, including keep your tickets in a secure place.

So if you do find out that your pool one, you actually have that.

All right.

I choose you nominate you, John, to be leader for our next gathering there.

All right.

John Reitmeyer, thank you.

You're welcome.