TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The jackpot in this weekend's Florida Lotto game is reaching its highest level in 12 years.
Lottery officials reported Friday that the jackpot for the Saturday drawing had reached $54 million. That's the highest total since September 2001.
The jackpot has reached that total because no one has been able to match all six numbers since the April 24 drawing.
Florida Lotto is the state's flagship lottery game that has been around since 1988. But it has been eclipsed in popularity in recent years by multi-state games such as Powerball.
Jackpot prizes are paid in 30 annual installments or as a one-time, lump-sum payment. Jackpot winners have 60 days after the draw to select the lump-sum payment option. Winners must claim their prizes within 180 days from the applicable drawing.
Saturday's drawing will take place at 11:00 pm Eastern Time. The results will be published on Lottery Post's Florida Lottery Results page soon after the drawing.
Already got my tiks
Got my personal and my pools ticket.
After all the monster jackpots we've had lately,..........$54mil. cash is great, annuity...not a big deal anymore. I will still gladly take either one regardless. A win is a win.
In the beginning of the Florida Lottery this would have been a big deal. Over $50mil created much more buzz and when it got to over $100mil on rare occasion it was all over the news.
The odds are much better with Florida Lotto at approximately 23mil to 1 vs. Powerball or MegaMillions at 175mil to 1...
Back in the nineties when only a few states had their own lotteries and Florida lottery jackpots got this large I remember reading about people flying there to buy thousands of tickets for resale in their own states for a dollar or two extra. It didn't take long before other states with large populations started their own lottery.
Hmm.........how far is Florida from Oklahoma
lol.... Good luck to all the Florida LP players
maybe its time the lottery start advertising the cash value rather than annuity............winners seem to always take the cash. when was the last time somebody won a major jackpot and took the annuity.
I would like to see the cash amounts advertised with an option of three annuities, 10, 20 or 30 years.
just a plane ride away
Good idea, but I don't think truth in advertising applies to lotteries.
Only when pigs fly. Come to think of it, I saw a pig, last week, on the plane. Maybe it was just a piglet.
When state lotteries first started they were only annuities and than a few years ago states started offering cash options. As one time only one persons could claim their prizes which made it harder for lottery pools to spread the tax burden fairly and that changed and I wouldn't be surprised if how lottery jackpots are advertised doesn't change some day too.
Hmmm....truth is stranger than fiction.
Absolutely! It's silly that they advertise a jackpot much larger than the current, real jackpot. Almost like false advertising. I can't remember where I read it, but I'm sure I read that 95% of people take the cash option. So why are they advertising some future prize that very few people care about or opt for???
It's like"Woo hoo! $54 million!!!
Oh, wait a minute, 
no, it's some other lower amount, not exactly sure what 
, then take some more off for taxes 
.... " It kinda strips away some of the fun.
I'm just more used to the Canadian and Australian way - the jackpot is what it is. Are the European ones the same?
Most of the euro-lotteries I've played are WYSIWYG, and they don't tax you upfront when you win. The monster jackpots{annuity}, advertising in the USA, are simply HEAD TURNERS. They make you leap before you look. It has been working for them so far.
Thanks for the info on the Euro lotteries. So everyone else does it the realistic way - what you see is what you get, which is the way it should be. I don't think the American ones need to plump up the jackpot winnings by advertising the future value of an annuity. It'd still turn my head with the lower, realistic value, as it does in other countries. It's just an old-fashioned concept that needs to get tossed in the bin.
And the jackpot keeps on rolling.
Florida Lotto™
Next Jackpot:
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
$56 Million
Winning Numbers:
Saturday, August 17, 2013
2-7-11-15-43-45-x2
Rollover
I couldn't disagree more. Whether YOU think the cash value is big enough, is irrelevant. Companies don't advertise for YOU. Same reason prices are listed at 99.99 not 100. It's because it looks more attractive, in general. It has nothing to do with what you or I think. This is advertising 101, it's a concept people typically learn before they are teens.
...YOU = CONSUMERS
...Companies target consumers{advertising}
...Consumers don't buy company product = Bankruptcy for company
...Company cares what YOU{consumer} thinks = Stays profitable
...Advertising 101= Consumer is always right, so try to please them or they won't buy, and you go bankrupt. CAPICHE?
I will buying a plane ticket to Florida this week...can't win it if you are not in it!
Wow... it's gett'n up there.
That's going to be one expensive ticket, but if you win...
The monster jackpots are like that of the headliner Quarterback Contract signings in the NFL. If a top tier QB signs a contract for 5 years $100 million dollars or so, it sounds massive, but in reality only $35 million or so is actually "gauranteed" money.
Umm..so advertisments from hundreds of thousands of companies over the years have been wrong all this time? I don't see them all going bankrupt from advertising a certain way?
Companies target consumers{advertising} =succeed = turns YOU{consumer} into customer.
Companies ignore/diss. consumers = failure = unable to convert consumer into customer = no profits{adjust or going down for the count.}
.
Correction...make that an award ticket...I have miles to burn on United or Delta.
That's one way to use those miles... I can see for miles and miles!