...The upgrade to 'AA-' from 'A+' of West Virginia's lottery and excess lottery revenue bonds reflects Fitch Ratings' implementation of the U.S. Public Finance Dedicated Tax and Revenue Bonds Rating Criteria, which emphasizes debt service coverage through a specific stress scenario. The rating also reflects the strong resilience of the financing structures and ample debt service coverage supporting 'aaa' resilience assessments. This offsets weakness in Fitch's revenue risk profile ('bb' for both lottery revenues and excess lottery revenues) given the discretionary nature of lottery and gaming activity and extremely high sensitivity to cyclical stress. Fitch expects leverage will remain within current statutory limits on maximum annual debt service (MADS). The ratings on lottery and excess lottery bonds are capped at West Virginia's Issuer Default Rating (IDR) of 'AA'/Stable due to interaction between lottery and excess lottery funds with the state's general revenue fund and the state's history...
