A system and associated method are provided for dispensing lottery tickets at retail establishments, the lottery tickets authorized for sale in a given jurisdiction by a lottery authority. The lottery tickets are formatted for sale at the retail establishment with a ticket purchase code and a separate ticket data code. For each ticket sale, the ticket purchase code is input into a point-of-sale (POS) system of the retail establishment such that purchase of the lottery ticket mimics purchase of a non-lottery product in the POS system. For each ticket sold, a ticket data packet is transmitted from the retail establishment to a host lottery system, the data packet identifying the particular lottery ticket sold from the ticket data code and the particular retail establishment at which the lottery ticket was sold. At the host lottery system, a data base is maintained of individual ticket sales at the retail establishment and data reports are generated that include number of tickets sold at the retail establishment during specified time periods. The data reports are transmitted to the lottery authority at specified time intervals.