Georgia lottery players and residents of 10 other states will compete Friday night to win the Mega Millions jackpot, which stands at $222 million - the largest payday in the game's history.
The drawing, which is usually broadcast live from the Midtown Atlanta studios of WSB-TV/Channel 2, will be held at Times Square in New York at 11 p.m.
Lottery officials said the huge jackpot is good for the game, its players and the state.
"A record-breaking Mega Millions jackpot is great for lottery players and retailers," said Margaret DeFrancisco, president and chief executive officer of the Georgia Lottery. "It's also wonderful to know that every dollar raised will benefit lottery-funded educational programs in Georgia."
The states that play Mega Millions are Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
Georgia uses part of its lottery proceeds to fund the HOPE scholarship, which is benefiting from the extra money that is pouring into lottery coffers by players trying to win.
Most of the state's lottery money gets paid out in cash prizes. But about a third goes back to education programs, including the HOPE scholarship.
"When we have a sales increase, that does mean more dollars returned to education," said J.B. Landroche, spokesman for the Georgia Lottery.
But even if the jackpot broke the $363 million all-time record, that wouldn't be near enough to save the scholarship from needed adjustments, lawmakers and officials said. The HOPE scholarship program gives free in-state college tuition to students with a B grade average.
The HOPE scholarship is expected to run short on cash in 2007, said Jim Ledbetter, head of the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government, which has studied HOPE's finances.
"In the long run, the state has to do something," Ledbetter said. "If you do nothing, even with 3 or 5 percent revenue growth you experience problems fairly quickly."
That's because spending on HOPE has steadily grown since its start in 1992 as standards were gradually relaxed and more students qualified, said Democratic Rep. Louise McBee, a retired professor from Athens who heads a committee trying to find ways to keep HOPE afloat.
Proposals for cutting back on HOPE include eliminating student grants for books and fees, and making it academically tougher for students to qualify for the scholarship.
"There's some excitement about the fact that the lottery has continued to increase," McBee said. "It won't solve the problem. We're going to have to do something."
It's difficult to calculate how much lottery money from this jackpot will go to college scholarships because Mega Millions revenue comes from 11 states and ticket sales are ongoing, Landroche said.
The lottery has brought in record proceeds for educational programs through the first six months of this fiscal year -- $376 million, which is $24 million more than the lottery gave to education the first six months of last year, he said.
Lottery officials said the games have returned over $6 billion to the state for educational initiatives, including Georgia's pre-kindergarten programs, the HOPE scholarship and a wide range of technological and capital upgrades for the state's schools, technical institutes, colleges, universities and public libraries.
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