By Kate Northrop
This morning, lottery officials announced that the multi-state Powerball lottery game will increase the number of nightly drawings from two to three times a week starting August 2021.
Players will have another shot at that big jackpot prize now that a new Monday drawing is added to the weekly draw schedule.
In addition to the drawings held on Wednesday and Saturday nights at 10:59 EST, Powerball will conduct a drawing on Monday nights at the same time.
"Our players really enjoy Powerball, and we are pleased to offer them the option of a third weekly drawing," Mississippi Lottery Corporation (MLC) President Tom Shaheen stated in a press release by the Mississippi Lottery this morning. "By having an additional draw-night, there is a greater opportunity for faster growing jackpots and more cash winnings."
The first-ever Powerball Monday night drawing will take place on Aug. 23, 2021. Players will be able to pick up tickets for the first Monday drawing starting Sun., Aug. 22, 2021.
Odds, rules, or set cash prizes will not change with the addition of another drawing, and the ticket price remains $2.
Now going to wait and see if Mega Millions will offer sales on Sundays??? If so, that just leaves Thursday untouched! LOL!
Just a thought came to me, how nice it would be if they'd return to starting @ $40 million and old incremental increases. This retired Respiratory Therapist won't hold his breath for that to happen!
Watch - in 10 years both will be a daily game with mid and eve draws.
Yet another way for the greedy state and national lottery operators to entice players to lose more money. This is like how Cash 4 Life went from twice a week to daily drawings and how Pa Match 6 did the same. And notice all the add-ons to lottery games that effectively double the price of the bet like the Pick 3 and Pick 4 fireball option or the Powerball and Megaball multiplier option. All these options which are billed as giving players more ways to win, which is true, but these costly options also means players bet more money for the CHANCE to win and as we all know most times we lose. Of course, no one makes us gamble but we gamblers must see these so-called new options for what they are: CASH GRABS.
I'm not sure I understand your concern about the Pick 3 and Pick 4 add-ons. Nobody is forcing you to buy them, just like you don't have to buy the Power Play and Megaplier features. People buy them if they want them. More choice seems like a great thing to me.
In PA, the daily Match 6 drawings are great also. It's nice to be able to buy a ticket and then find out if you're a winner that evening.
I have no idea how I'll feel about the extra Powerball drawing, but my guess is that it will be fine.
Extra monday draws 2021
international play 2022
How many years until they change the matrix?
Thanks, Todd. I pointed out no one is forcing us to gamble or to play the options but wanted to put out there that the options also benefit the bottom line of the lottery operators and can farther entice problem gamblers.
More choices are usually better.
However, if I don't play my numbers on Monday's draw they will for sure hit without me!
It should go back to $1 and $1 x. Maybe a system I started working on will get me more money in.
I'm more concerned as to whether they will lower the starting jackpot. They said just about everything else, but that.
In a way you like Todd- always "working on something," but the comparison ends there.
I don't think they will go lower past $20 million - that would be ultra lame.
*knocks on wood*
I'm pretty sure they added another drawing because millions of $2 tickets are sold for the two weekly drawings they have now. Your request is similar to raising the starting annuitized jackpot as if it's easier to win the drawing after a jackpot is hit.
Funny-- they should now increase the starting pot!
Nice news, good reason to stick with favorite numbers!
Good luck everyone.
"they should now increase the starting pot!"
When they say the rules won't change I expect that means that the starting jackpot won't go up or down, and the minimum increase also won't go up or down. With a minimum increase of only $2 million there's not a lot of room to reduce it, but if it hadn't already been reduced I suspect they'd do it now because with 3 drawings a week there's a good chance that the sales per drawing will go down.
In a lot of ways this is comparable to raising the price to $3 and lowering the odds. Instead of $4 to play twice a week for a 1 in 146 million chance at the jackpot it's now $6 for a 1 in 97.3 million chance. The big mystery is whether players will be influenced more by the 50% price increase or the better effective odds. I'm figuring a lot of players won't spend the extra money.
That also affects how much faster the jackpot will grow. Unless sales really tank the jackpot will definitely grow faster from week to week, but the increase from one jackpot to the next will be lower than what we're used to if the sales per drawing go down. Based on the variation in increases in the past I think that having 4 days for sales instead of 3 is already a factor, so only having 2 days for sales have an effect that's independent of the jackpot amount.
When a jackpot is won, is the state responsible for paying? Like if the grand prize winner lived in Michigan does the money come from that sole state? The reason I'm asking mainly pertains to the 3 digit. My normal systems stopped working for a while. I thought it was because trip 7s had dropped, but then I read a story about a lucky 4 life winner that won 1,000/per day.
Must be about time to change the ole matrix..what has it been ??? 5 years ?
They really think that players believe that their motive for such a change is to benefit US.! Haaa..!!
The Pandemic has cut into their Money.. so , adding an extra drawing per week is their way of trying to increase their revenue and profits, but not increase their expenses..
Just MORE smoke blown up our butts... the Height of Arrogance, meanwhile, setting an unprecedented cutoff time of an HOUR to rigg the results ,so they can award Big Jackpots to anybody , anywhere , except in the Communities that participates/ contributes the MOST..!!
THIS News Topic is Officially stamped.....
"CERTIFIED BULLS***T"
-Stat$talker
Imagine coming home from a crappy Monday at work only to watch the 10 p.m. news and see your winning Powerball numbers flash across the bottom of the screen. You scream with excitement and joy only to realize that you forgot to pick up your ticket and play your numbers for the Monday drawing! I have heard of a case where that actually happened! So always err on the side of caution because a opportunity like that only comes "once in a lifetime!" Nothing worse than your ship finally coming in only to miss the boat at the dock because you forgot to buy a ticket. That person had to feel horrible at that moment and it's a situation that I think a person would never truly get over. All the Coulda, Woulda, shoulda's cant change that!
Todd or others can correct me if I'm wrong. Payouts for pick 3/4 and whatever state only lottery tickets they have is the responsibility of the state for the money.
Lucky for Life, Cash 4 Life out of CT and NJ respectively garner all the wagers countrywide and goes into a pot so to speak. Same for Powerball and Mega Millions. The computer would know what state owes what and wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was done automatically through an EFT? My point is no matter how the funds are transferred the individual state does not pay for the whole jackpot---that would bankrupt them quickly!
Multi-state jackpots are paid by all the states collectively. A percentage of every ticket sold goes toward the jackpot in each state. When someone wins the jackpot, all the states send their share to the state lottery that sold the ticket, and that state then pays out the winner once it's all collected. (That's why it can take a couple of weeks to get the check.)
On the other hand, all non-jackpot prizes are paid 100% by the state that sold the winning ticket. So if someone from South Dakota wins a $1 million Mega Millions prize, the South Dakota lottery pays out 100% of that $1 million prize from lottery sales within their state.
You can think of multi-state games as hybrid games, in which there is a truly multi-state jackpot game combined with an in-state game for all the lower-tier prizes.
Thanks Todd for this information.
Had always thought that MUSL would get the money and send it to the state)s) with the winning jackpot(s).
Well, I'm going the opposite way and just by a ticket on Wednesdays. If it's meant to be it will have be on Wednesday.
Next will be drawings twice a day. Really. Players can pay mega millions on Tuesday and Friday and Powerbore on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays now. They bumped the price to 2.00 years ago and increased the matrix to an impossible amount of numbers to choose from. Isn't that enough. It is a full time job just to play now. Also you need one to be able to play them.
That would be nice, more people would winning
I agree, instead of waiting 30 yrs maybe it will decrease to 15 or less
First it was 'Lucky For Life' announcing they were taking the game from twice weekly to daily status, to which I made the decision I will completely stop playing LFL when that takes effect. If I can't afford to be in every drawing then I will not play. I would hate it if my numbers came in on a drawing that I hadn't purchased a ticket. I haven't decided if I will drop Powerball yet. But if I do I will take the money I was spending and play it instead on my states lottery game as extra wagers. I have a set budget for lottery play and will not exceed it.
I only play state lotteries. I can easily reach three states and generally their jackpots are in the 1-5 million range which are sneered at by most since they want the 200m or more or they won't play. These are far more hittable with many less numbers and are usually only 1.00 a play. Ok, 1 million isn't very much money any more but 2 million seems like enough to slide by with. Also any states Cash 5 game is worth looking at especially if it goes over 100k like RI does on occasion.
I agree with Billy bucks, why wait, 20 mill is good with me!
Good luck everyone!