By Todd Northrop

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Lesson learned: if you want to sell-out raffle lottery tickets, set (and hold to) an end date.

In what started as one of the longest raffle ticket sales periods in recent memory, and ended in a flurry of last-minute sales, the Arkansas Lottery officially concluded its first-ever raffle today.

At the end of the day, there are two freshly-minted millionaires, and over a thousand winners of $1,000 and $100 prizes.

The two winning $1 million numbers were 199692 and 409266.  They were sold at Hawg's Exxon, 1135 North St. Louis Street, in Batesville and at Atchley's Outpost, 5430 Central Avenue, in Hot Springs.

The complete set of winning numbers for Arkansas' Million Dollar Raffle can be found at Lottery Post's Arkansas Lottery Results page.

In addition to the 1,142 winners drawn today, the lottery also awarded thousands of $20 instant prizes: four for every 100 Raffle tickets sold.  The instant prize winners are also qualified to win any of the main drawing prizes.

"This is an exciting day for Arkansas players," said Arkansas Lottery Commission Chairman Dianne Lamberth of Batesville. "But it is just as exciting for the students of Arkansas, who will receive more than $1 Million in additional scholarships because of the Raffle's success."

Tickets went on sale Wed. July 14, 2010, at a price of $10 each.  The drawing date was anticipated to be held in September, 2010, although with the caveat of "or after all tickets have been sold, whichever occurs last".  Once it was estimated that tickets would not sell out by September, the lottery refused to set a definite date for months.

By February 1, 2011, about half the raffle tickets were sold, and the lottery decided to set a drawing date of April 7.  The Arkansas Lottery apparently did not want to see the drawing date occur a full year after tickets went on sale, because the drawing date was fixed without the tickets being sold out first.

By this past Sunday, April 3, approximately 400,000 tickets had been sold.  The final 100,000 tickets were sold in the past three days, with the last ticket sold Wednesday night after 10:00 pm.  The ticket sales cutoff time was midnight, if all tickets had not been sold at that point.

Prizes must be claimed within 180 days of the draw date, and winning ticket numbers must be identical to and in the same order as the numbers drawn.

$100 prizes can be claimed at any retailer, but the two $1 million prizes and the $1,000 prizes must be claimed at one of the four ASL Claim Centers:

• 124 West Capitol Avenue in Little Rock
• 2512 Alexander Drive, Suite A in Jonesboro
• 3896 Elm Springs Road, #B in Springdale
• 115 Garden Oaks Drive in Camden