Hope springs eternal.

That adage might explain why Pennsylvanians have continued to buy lottery tickets in record numbers even as their pennies get pinched by rising prices and economic anxiety.

That's good news because the Lottery Fund pays for important services for senior citizens including property tax and rent rebates, transit fares and low-cost prescription drugs.

Lottery sales totaled $3.089 billion during the 2007-08 fiscal year, a slight increase over the previous year. The popularity of the scratch-and-win (or not) tickets continued to grow last year, and they now account for 55 percent of all lottery sales.

That does have a downside; the instant tickets have a higher payoff for the buyer than sales of tickets for drawings of daily and weekly numbers. Those sales earn the state 40 cents on the dollar, compared to 22 cents per dollar for the instant games. As a result, the total profits on lottery sales last year dropped to $928 million, 4 percent less than the all-time high of $968 million in 2005-06.

State House Republicans are worried about the decline and a recent report, which suggested the opening of new state casinos could hurt lottery sales nearby. That's something state officials will have to watch for in the future, just as they must be careful how the state sells gambling -- whether lottery tickets or slot machines -- emphasizing the long-shot nature of such a purchase that's no replacement for careful financial planning.