And with that sale, the two-year-old state lottery will hit a milestone: $1 billion in sales in a single year. By the end of Thursday, the lottery had sold $995,787,389 worth of tickets for the fiscal year that ends June 30.

In two years, we've learned a bit about the lottery and North Carolina players. Here's a look:

* What's the hottest game?

Scratch-off games rule, as a rule, but players spend more on Powerball tickets when the jackpot climbs into the hundreds of millions.

* Who plays?

The lottery doesn't track players, but an analysis of sales shows that players tend to buy more Powerball tickets in ZIP codes with a higher median income than ZIP codes where scratch-off sales dominate.

* Why haven't property taxes dropped if the lottery benefits education?

The lottery is officially called the N.C. Education Lottery, but the money raised by ticket sales is narrowly targeted to four specific programs and priorities. Those are the pre-kindergarten program More at Four, college scholarships, school construction and hiring teachers to reduce class sizes in early grades.

Sales have been sluggish for much of the lottery's first two years, and it has raised less than $700 million for education, so far. To put that in perspective, state public schools spent more than $11 billion on education in 2007.

* Has the lottery created more problem gambling?

No, according to a study of gambling habits in the state. The lottery is required to pay for the study, which is conducted through another state agency.

* Why does the lottery advertise so much/so little?

How you ask this question depends on what you think of the lottery. State law limits advertising to 1 percent of its revenues, which means the lottery can spent $10 million or so a year on ads.