California Lottery: Calif. Lottery hops on raffle bandwagon
With Million Dollar Raffle, California becomes the latest state lottery to introduce a raffle-style game.
The new game, which goes on sale February 5th, gives players the best odds of winning a million dollars of any game ever offered by the California Lottery.
Million Dollar Raffle is played like a typical raffle type draw game that many people have already experienced.
The game will have a maximum of 5 million unique (7 digit) raffle numbers available for sale to players for $5 per number. Raffle game numbers are issued in sequence starting at 0000001, continuing in single digit increments to 5000000.
Million Dollar Raffle will run for only a limited time. Sales begin on February 5, 2007 and will continue through March 17, 2007 or until all 5 million numbers have been sold, whichever comes first.
Numbers will cost $5 each. For every $20 you spend on raffle tickets, you will receive one number free.
| Raffle #'s Issued/Ticket Price | Includes |
| 1 for $5 | - |
| 2 for $10 | - |
| 3 for $15 | - |
| 5 for $20 | 1 Free Number |
| 10 for $40 | 2 Free Numbers |
| 15 for $60 | 3 Free Numbers |
| 20 for $80 | 4 Free Numbers |
| 25 for $100 | 5 Free Numbers |
Million Dollar Raffle will have four preliminary draws where numbers drawn will be worth $10,000, and a final draw on March 17, 2007 where the numbers drawn will win $1 million in cash (no annuitized prizes).
After each preliminary draw, raffle numbers remain eligible for subsequent draws, including the Grand Prize, so whatever you do, hold on to your tickets!
| Draw Dates | # of Winners | Prize Amounts |
|---|
| February 17, 2007 | 10 | $10,000 each |
| February 24, 2007 | 10 | $10,000 each |
| March 3, 2007 | 10 | $10,000 each |
| March 10, 2007 | 10 | $10,000 each |
| March 17, 2007 | at least 5,
and up to 10* | $1,000,000 each |
| * If all 5 million raffle numbers are sold, ten $1,000,000 Raffle Grand Prizes will be awarded. |
The odds of winning a prize are better than 1 in 600,000.
California's Million Dollar Raffle is different from other state lottery raffles drawn in the past month for a few reasons, including:
- At $5 each, tickets are less expensive. Other state lottery raffles are typically priced at $20, and some are $10.
- There are no 'third-tier' prizes of $100, $500, or $1,000. Most states award several hundred smaller prizes, in addition to a jackpot of $1 million and the second-tier prizes of between $25,000 and $100,000.
- California is awarding $10,000 prizes in a series of four preliminary drawings, and a winner in one of those drawings is still eligible to win a $1 million prize in the final drawing. This is most likely to maintain excitement for the game over the entire sales period. This technique may be useful for those states that experienced slow sales this holiday season, but in other states tickets have sold out so fast that there would be no need (or time) for preliminary drawings.
- California's game is starting after the Christmas holiday season, however this may be corrected in the next holiday season. Raffle tickets are popular gifts during the Christmas holiday season.
- Million Dollar Raffle does not guarantee a fixed number of $1 million prizes, as other states have done. Therefore, the odds of winning $1 million cannot be known ahead of time with certainty.