An Internet web site offering information about the United States' largest multi-state lottery games, Mega Millions and Powerball, today introduced a new feature for players seeking start dates for both games.
USA Mega (www.usamega.com) added the dates that Mega Millions and Powerball tickets went on sale in each state offering either game. In addition, historical information is provided for prior versions of each game.
Both games began under different names and offered different drawing and prize features than their current incarnations.
Mega Millions started in 1996 as The Big Game, and was changed to Mega Millions in 2002. USA Mega provides information about each state that offered the first version of The Big Game, as well as the dates and versions of the game when other states joined the game later.
Likewise, Powerball was not always known by that name. It began in 1988 as Lotto America, and was not changed to Powerball until 1992. USA Mega provides the start date for each of the 29 states and jurisdictions that currently offer the game, including information about whether or not they offered Lotto America.
The historical features are offered on the "Where To Play" pages of both Mega Millions and Powerball at www.usamega.com.
About USA Mega
USA Mega provides in-depth information about the United States' two largest multi-state lottery games, Mega Millions and Powerball.
Lottery players will find unique information not found on any other web site, including statistics, news, Jackpot Analysis, detailed prize payout information, past drawing information, powerful results search engine ("PowerSearch"), Frequently Asked Questions, and more.
One of the things making USA Mega so unique is that players can find all the information about the two games in one place, and in an easy-to-use manner. Without USA Mega, players would need to track down the information from several different sources, or perform complicated calculations on their own.
USA Mega is a free web site, with no costs to access any part of the web site.
Every time you add something new, I have to ask the same question: Where is the information?
The sixth paragraph of the story states:
Then, the links at the bottom ofthe story provide direct access to both pages.
DUH!
This feature is a good example of creating something specifically because someone asked for it.
About three or four weeks ago I received an e-mail from someone who had two suggestions, and this was one of them (I also implemented the other one). I thought it was a good idea, not just because the information was not available on USA Mega, but also because it doesn't exist anywhere else on the Internet.
I looked at every single state lottery site, as well as the "official" Powerball and Mega Millions sites, and no web site has all the start dates for all the states.
In fact, some states don't list their historical information at all, and generally speaking, every single web site out there has incomplete information, and in most cases make it very difficult to locate. For example, in their "history" page, some states say something like, "in 1990 we started Powerball." Really great historical information, eh? Not exactly the precise date I was looking for.
I spent weeks locating all the start dates. Some of the states were very helpful in responding to my requests for information (notably, Indiana, Delaware, Wisconsin, and Kentucky -- thank you). For other states I used the Internet to research archived news stories, and located the date that tickets went on sale by reading media accounts.
To me, it is one body of work that was completely missing from the Internet, and I'm happy that USA Mega is now the keeper of that information.
Thanks to the reader who suggested it.
(By the way, it will also be interesting to see how quickly my hard-earned information is leeched by other web sites. All of the sudden, we'll see other lottery sites showing the start dates for Mega Millions and Powerball. Because the information was uniquely colected by me, I will get a chance to see who is taking info from USA Mega. The same thing happened after I created the Jackpot Analysis pages. Now we're seeing Jackpot Analysis pages crop up on other web sites. Wonder where they got that idea?
)
Imitation is the greatest ... Besides, without leadership, where would the sheep go.
Powerball was not a new name for Lotto*America. L*A was originally a 7/40 and evolved into a 6/54. The new name came about with the two-drum format.
Cash Only,
What can I say? That's just wrong. The game was CHANGED to Powerball. You may perceive it as a different game, but the lottery who created it does not. They consider it a new version of the game, and so do I.
Many times I think you take a negative view on things just to try to stir something up, as if I'm posting wrong information or something. Give me a break!
todd:
OK. I thought I had a good memory when it came to the history of US lotteries.
BTW, the original white balls used when the game changed to Powerball were the original set from the game when it was called Lotto America. In fact, they were used for four years of Powerball drawings before being replaced.
Claiming that Lotto America was not the previous version of Powerball is the same as saying that The Big Game was not the previous version of Mega Millions. Instead of attempting to invalidate something which I obviously spent a long time researching, how about asking a question or two instead of slamming it?
todd:
Who said I was slamming Powerball/Lotto America? Come to think of it, L*A was annuity-only, and PB didn't start its cash option until 1997...
I didn't say you were slamming the game. I said you were slamming me.
You said: "Powerball was not a new name for Lotto*America."
Excuse me, but yes it is. You're basically saying that the entire concept of going back and showing the history of when each state joined Lotto America, the previous version of Powerball, is flawed because they are not related. I have no idea why you would say such a thing, but you did.
I'll have to agree with Todd on this one. We considered PB as the next version of L*A. PB was a unique game design though. We should have patented it - too late now.
As for not putting up the historical stuff, we didn't figure that anyone cared. When we get asked, we provide the info and then someone starts a web site <sigh>.
And the cash option was only available after negotiations with the Treasury Department to waive the application of the Constructive Reciept rule. Ideally, lotteries could allow a winner to set up their own annuity option but, for the moment, a lottery can only offer the two extremes - cash or long-term annuity.