The gambling monopoly in Canada’s four Atlantic provinces suffered a profit shortfall in its most recent fiscal year due to COVID-19 and is frantically beefing up its digital offering in case the pandemic sticks around.

On Tuesday, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation (ALC), which holds a gambling monopoly in the provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, reported a profit of C$395.4m (US$301m) in the 12 months ending March 31, down 6.2% from fiscal 2018-19.

Revenue fell 5% year-on-year to C$725.5m as overall sales fell and the ALC doled out an additional C$14m in prizes to players. Lottery draw ticket sales were down 8% to C$164m, Scratch’N Win sales slipped 2.5% to C$78m and Breakopen ticket revenue tumbled 13.7% to C$37.8m. The Breakopen product underwent some tinkering that ALC says retailers and players “did not adopt and transition to … as anticipated.”

The only lottery category that posted positive growth in 2019-20 was iGames, as digital instant win sales more than doubled year-on-year to C$10.6m although iBingo slipped C$600k to C$2m.