The long odds of winning the Washington state lottery will get slightly shorter.
Starting Oct. 5, the state will drop the "Plus" from Lotto Plus and change the game to increase the number of winners.
In Lotto Plus, players pick five numbers out of 43 and one number out of 23, giving them a 1-in-11 million chance of winning the jackpot in the Wednesday and Saturday drawings.
The Saturday jackpot was $41 million, the highest it has been.
Starting next month, six winning numbers will be randomly chosen from among 49. The change lowers the odds of hitting the jackpot to 1 in 7 million.
Lotto Plus is simply too similar to Mega Millions, the interstate lottery game that began last September, officials said. The odds are 1 in 135 million for winning that jackpot, which only one Washington resident has done.
The state, one of 10 partners in the country's largest jackpot game, rang up about $51 million in sales during its first year of participation. That is less than half the $117 million originally projected.
Proceeds for education and school construction, originally predicted to be $32 million, turned out to be $13 million.
Lottery officials have attributed the lackluster income to the weak state economy and the difficulty of introducing the new game that competes with the state's own Lotto Plus and other lottery games.
6/49 with odds of 1-in-7 million would be 2 plays/$1 (same as Maryland).
WA should also replace Quinto (playing cards) with an all-NUMBER pick-5, and dump "Lucky for Life" (Lotzee format).