Dual multi-state lottery sales may keep jackpots lower

Comment #69

DC81 — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:18:42 GMT

I can sum up this article with one word....

Duh.

Comment #68

bogeytrain — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:14:47 GMT

On the topic of a National Lottery, this excerpt is from The Philadelphia Inquirer dated Thursday October 15th 2009:

An even bigger game also is envisioned.

If we develop a national game, it will probably be at a differentprice point, said Tom Shaheen, president of the Iowa-based Multi-StateLottery Association, which oversees Powerball.

It might be $2. It might be $5, he said. The other two games, I believe, would remain intact.

Each state will have to decide if it wants to parti... [ More ]

Comment #67

sunjune6 — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:28:49 GMT

National Lottery is just a matter of time. I said this a few months ago and I am more convinced of that fact now. It may be sooner than later. I will welcome a National Lottery. The prize structure should be one that will create more million dollar winners rather than one or two multi-millions winners.

Comment #66

RJOh — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:41:45 GMT

The real losers will be those on-line businesses that sold PowerBall and MegaMillions tickets to players who didn't have the game in their states. I doubt if their customers will continue to pay an extra dollar or more per tickets for their services once they can buy their tickets locally at cost.

Comment #65

lottocalgal — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:16:39 GMT

I hope not 'cause they won't keep the numbers the same and have say 10 people win 3 million dollars instead on one person winning 100 million. They would probably increase the amount of numbers to something like 7/79 plus a bonus number so there would be more money generated and fewer winners.

Comment #64

ThatScaryChick — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:27:32 GMT

Here's one news story reporting that Ohio will be offering Powerball.

Comment #63

wizeguy — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:00:13 GMT

Can you please provide a link on this information about OH. It is contrary to the press release on their website with respect to starting date -

http://www.ohiolottery.com/press_releases/PressReleasesDet.aspx?Id=1685

Comment #62

chasingadream — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 07:31:34 GMT

The best advice i can offer is to do research.

Call your lottery commission and ask many questions. Email them also........ lol I had to type re-type this response. I almost gave you my strategy I plan to use to claim my jackpot when I win. Wow if I had typed that everyone on here would have known exactly who won...... *tickled*

Don't let those few bad apples that have won and behaved badly give you a bad impression of winning. There are hundreds of multi-million dollar winners that handle... [ More ]

Comment #61

chasingadream — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 06:09:48 GMT

You should start looking at the glass as half full instead of half empty. Everyone likes to have a variety. No one twist anyones arm to buy all tickets for all games but I bet everyone likes to have a variety of choices. One day/month/week you might get tired of playing PB and you switch over to MM. Anyone with a sensible business mind knows that you want to give as many options as possible for the consumer. You don't want that dollar to walk out the door and go to the competitor. One of the rea... [ More ]

Comment #60

chasingadream — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:44:20 GMT

There are already games of this nature......scratchers and Pick 5

no need to have a game with multiple states that produce 50k jackpots when a state can stand alone and produce those type results

Comment #59

chasingadream — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:37:59 GMT

I agree. The Matrix will be one to behold .....lol the tricky thing is trying to design a matrix that doesn't see so hard that the average person feels defeated and doesn't play

Comment #58

Guru101 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:25:28 GMT

Hopefully Mega Millions will keep rolling so we'll have a nice jackpot to go after that first drawing. I hope I win it too.

Comment #57

Olsaman — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:47:33 GMT

This is correct. Powerball tickets will go on sale Jan. 31st for the Feb. 3rd drawing. Illinois Lottery employee came into work today and explained the changes to us.

Comment #56

megamillionaire — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:54:51 GMT

I don't drink beer and 20 or 30 million will build me one of the worlds greenest homes that will allow me to live off the grid thereby paying nothing for heating, cooling or electricity. I will do a lot of traveling after the house is built and have a great place to come home to. If your 18 and can't retire with 20 or 30 million there's something wrong with you or you're just a greedy jerk.

Comment #55

wizeguy — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:42:53 GMT

OH lottery site has a press release dated today... things are still subject to approval and spring would be the earliest that Powerball *might* be sold sigh . Well, at least they are moving forward.

Comment #54

Rowen — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:06:10 GMT

IL is getting Powerball end of the month. Heard from place that I buy my tickets from.

Comment #53

viceroy2 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:05:14 GMT

Ok, while I am excited that my state, Kentucky, is ready to roll out Mega Millions along side Powerball, I am still having to wrestle with the ardouous question about identity security.

Knowing that games are subject to individual states agreeing to a certain set of rules, some states have diffrerent and conflicting rules regarding Winner Identity security.

Some states allow winners to shield themselves, out of regard for their personal safety, and identity control.

Other states feel th... [ More ]

Comment #52

Nino224 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:23:51 GMT

Florida's playing hard to get, just like they did with PB for all those years.

Is it a given a new game will bring in more money? What reason could they have for not joining

Comment #51

KY Floyd — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:52:29 GMT

The increased chances of a winner will go hand in hand with bigger increases from one jackpot to the next.

As long as the odds don't change we can (still) expect a long term average of one winner for every 176 or 195 milion tickets sold. Of course few of the jackpots that are won are average, and changing the number of tickets in a drawing will change the likely results of *that* drawing. When the jackpot is still relatively small the chance of a winner will still be relatively small, so we c... [ More ]

Comment #50

Think — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:26:06 GMT

It all depends on your imagination and expectations. I suppose 20-30 Million will pay for alot of Beer, potato chips and cable tv bills. I can see where different people would care about different amounts. Certainly, if you are 18 years old and expect to live to 100, you could make an argument for $500,000,000-$600,000,000 jackpots.

I have a minimum amount to play for but that does not stop me from figuring out what to do with more.

Comment #49

Think — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:16:46 GMT

There is such a game. It is Powerball with Multiplier.

Comment #48

Think — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:10:04 GMT

They must not teach you about smoke and mirrors at the University of Georgia. Powerball does not calculate its jackpot the same way Mega Millions does. Look at the cash values of the jackpots compared to their annuity values.

Comment #47

ohiopick3 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:16:44 GMT

I feel that too many states offer too many games as it is right now. The more games, the more chances you have to lose your hard earned money. And by adding more games at different days of the week will only increase your chances of losing even more.

Stick with the games available in your state and just play them. Stick with your budget and just sit back and enjoy life instead of chasing every dream that the Lotteries put out there for us to spend our money on.

Playing any lottery game sho... [ More ]

Comment #46

megamillionaire — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:00:17 GMT

The last part of the article mentions the fact that a national lottery is coming either in December of 2010 or the beginning of 2011.

Comment #45

chuck32 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:50:31 GMT

Right you are. Average Jackpots should stay about the same. There will just be more Jackpots hit more often.

Comment #44

dpoly1 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:43:34 GMT

Pennsylvania will have a Megaplier

Comment #43

NearNewBrit — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:11:21 GMT

I've been to the ctlottery.org website in the past hour, but I don't see anything there about Mega Millions. This LotteryPost story broke the news to me that Connecticut will do double duty. I read a story here a few weeks ago that talked about the various states that are going to sell both of these games (MM and Powerball); Connecticut was not confirmed/committed at that time.

However, at the supermarket earlier this morning, I did see advertising near the lottery terminal that says sales of... [ More ]

Comment #42

dpoly1 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:49:30 GMT

Pennsylvania starts Mega Millions sales on January 31st .........

Keep rolling MM, Keep rolling !!!!!!!!!!!!

These guys promised to help me with my financial planning

I am just fine with 300 million $ jackpots

Comment #41

RJOh — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:36:45 GMT

I'm thinking a player who wins a jackpot will probably only get that lucky once in a life time. Getting that lucky three days later after a $300M jackpot was won and reset to $20M would give one mixed feelings thinking they missed getting $280M by three days or one drawing.

I had a similar feeling last week when I matched three white balls once, matched the mega ball once and match two white balls twice all on different lines on two five dollar tickets. I won nine dollars but I would have bee... [ More ]

Comment #40

lottocalgal — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:54:48 GMT

I mean After Donald Trump and Oprah made their first billion they didn't say oooooh i think i'm too rich so I will just stop making money

So true, but if you listen to many of the billionaires out there now, they say that its not about the money, its about keeping score . Even The Donald sums it up all the time by saying its about The Game or the more famous The Art of the Deal. For them, it stop being about money many $$$$$$$$$ ago. But for us it is my guess that its about the security th... [ More ]

Comment #39

Hermanus104 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:27:51 GMT

Since Mega Millions does not have a megaplier and the starting jackpots are lower, I wonder if Powerball is going to be much more heavily played than Mega Millions.

Comment #38

Guru101 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:13:09 GMT

Cool. Now I can play 4 times a week.

Comment #37

LadyMylena — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 08:02:19 GMT

That's exactly how I feel.

Comment #36

ThatScaryChick — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:12:45 GMT

Nah, RJOh, I wouldn't be upset with a $20 million dollar win, even if the next jackpot was $300 million. Honestly, I wouldn't give a crap what the next size of the jackpot was. I would be filled with joy to have won $20 million dollars in the first place.

Comment #35

rdgrnr — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:42:40 GMT

I like that idea TnTicket. I bet there's a lot of other people who do too.

Comment #34

TnTicketlosers — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:16:54 GMT

I wish there was a game across all states that we all could have a chance to win,,cant someone out there come up with a game we all could play a win about $50,000 instead of all those millions...

Comment #33

megamillionaire — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:17:52 GMT

At last, I have a date for New York to join Powerball. If they start selling tickets on Jan. 31 the first drawing will be Feb. 3. I agree with an earlier poster who said that winning a huge jackpot is not necessarily the only reason to play, 20 or 30 million is as good as 300 million.

Comment #32

Prob988 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:56:47 GMT

I analyzed your argument and posted a thread in the jackpots forum.

You are actually on to something.

Comment #31

hsg2000A — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:07:39 GMT

I wished my state of Louisiana had agreed to participate in MegaMillion, we would have had the two mega lotteries in our state and need not have to run to Texas to buy the Mega Million lottery tickets.

Comment #30

maringoman — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:19:10 GMT

I believe the first tickets will be somewhat of a collectors item.

I also tend to think more people will play powerball over mega millions should the

jackpots reset at the same time. This is because Powerball has power play. Just

for an extra dollar and you can increase winnings 5 times? Mega millions will be the slow coach unless...

Comment #29

rdgrnr — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:51:39 GMT

I'd like to know more about this national game that Shaheen is talking about.

Is he saying his Powerball group is going to run it?

I think the only thing we can count on now is that the matrix is going to be a monster.

Comment #28

luvrh — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:43:07 GMT

I will take what ever I can get at this point...$12, $20, $60....$100+ Million.

Comment #27

RJOh — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:40:07 GMT

Making local news could be bad too, I've had folks who after noticing me buying $20 worth of lottery tickets come up to me with a sob story asking for money.

Comment #26

diamondpalace — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:33:37 GMT

The keyword is may , not definate.

The jackpot will break its own records for both games. Faster increase of jackpot will result in this.

Unless the game draw is daily, I don't see why it shouldn't be above 200M in 2 weeks roll (4 draws).

Comment #25

starchild_45 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:28:32 GMT

told you so. i knew they were going to go to one lotto as soon as they started talking about selling both in one state.

Comment #24

wizeguy — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:22:40 GMT

I think there would be some give and take between MegaMillions and Powerball depending on jackpot levels but I don't think Classic Lotto would take much of a hit. Jackpots are in another class but so are the odds.

Comment #23

time*treat — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:11:19 GMT

The extra upside is that winning the 20 mil would barely make more than local news, the spotlight would be on the 300 mil winner.

Comment #22

jeffrey — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:36:02 GMT

Ohio might not risk it. They have a crappy state lottery. :( (starts at a million and increases by 100,000) It will suffer if there is another game. I drive to Indiana to play both powerball and the Hoosier lottery. I still buy tickets for the ohio lottery but if I win I may just be a thousandaire. I'd take it though; it would still be life changing.

Comment #21

MADDOG10 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:12:23 GMT

I say the more Jackpot winners, the better for everyone .....

Comment #20

wizeguy — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:41:09 GMT

'Ohio Lottery spokeswoman Marie Kilbane Seckers said the potential overlap with Powerball is still awaiting approval from the governor and the lottery commissioners.'

I sure hope they approve it

Comment #19

dpoly1 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:39:47 GMT

I live in Pennsylvania. I now currently only play Powerball. When we get MegaMillions I will play that game also. I have no interest in the other games offered by the PA Lottery.

Just waiting for MM

Comment #18

chasingadream — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:23:17 GMT

I happen to think its a great idea. I like large jackpots as well as the small ones. What's wrong with wanting to be ambitious and crave a $300mill jackpot? I mean After Donald Trump and Oprah made their first billion they didn't say oooooh i think i'm too rich so I will just stop making money

Comment #17

Captain Lotto — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:50:58 GMT

I can't imagine anyone being disappointed with a $20 million jackpot.

Comment #16

Stack47 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:36:22 GMT

The question should be will the other states increase their profits? because to play the extra jackpot game twice a week the, players will probably play less on other lottery games. The increased profits come from occasional players who don't play until a jackpot is huge and as the article said the average size of winning jackpots should decrease.

Will more money be spent on both games or will the same amount of money (or even less) be distributed between the two games

Comment #15

sully16 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:13:30 GMT

What smaller state games are going to get hit if everyone is playing 2 jackpots? the average person only has so much to play with.

Comment #14

RJOh — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:04:36 GMT

You make a good point, these games do seem to be won after their jackpots roll to a value that attracts a certain number of ticket buyers. With the additional states their jackpots won't need to be that high to attract that certain number of ticket buyers.

Comment #13

universe — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:01:36 GMT

I see where this is going.We are going to have a national lottery very soon.

Comment #12

lottocalgal — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:17:11 GMT

Thats soooooo True ladyMylenda.

Even If Powerball winners won something like 2 or 3million it would be life changing. I mean depending on your age, if you won lets say 5 mill, you could even retire. Even so, it would be life changing for anyone. Think about it, paying off your house 20 years early (life changing) Putting you kids through college effortlessly (life changing) Even putting it in that bank as your own personal retirment savings is life changing because you can feel safe knowin... [ More ]

Comment #11

johnph77 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:31:54 GMT

Reason being that if there are more tickets sold in a given time period it is more likely that there will be a winner, rather than have the jackpot roll over.

Comment #10

RJOh — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:10:51 GMT

That's what you say now that you've never won any lottery jackpot, but if won a $20M jackpot the next drawing after a $300M one had just been won you might be disappointed.

Comment #9

ThatScaryChick — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:40:13 GMT

I'm sure they will join later. I bet when California and Ohio see that the other states have increased their profits, they will change their mind.

Comment #8

ThatScaryChick — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:36:30 GMT

Same here. Too me, it doesn't matter what size the jackpot is. It could be 20 million or 300 million for all I care, I just want to win

Comment #7

jeffrey — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:33:41 GMT

I wish Ohio would sell powerball. I like to play both but have to drive across state lines to do it. Save my gas Ohio.

Comment #6

RJOh — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:21:44 GMT

Jackpot now are the results of the number of tickets sold and states contributing 30% of sales to the jackpot. Unless that formula changes, I don't see why jackpots should be any smaller, in fact they should continue to roll to the same size, just quicker and more often. Facts are with more states participating, the starting jackpot should increase too.

Comment #5

konane — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:21:22 GMT

Are they leading up to a matrix increase again

Comment #4

LadyMylena — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 04:17:57 GMT

Me, either. I would happily take it, if I won it, tho. lol

I would rather see 10 people get $10 million each, any day. Heck, I honestly wish powerball was $20 or $30 million every draw, and someone won it everytime. Instead of one person being *filthy* rich, I'd like to see a bunch of people well off . I feel like I'd have a better chance to be one of them, and a lot of other people that NEED it, too.

Comment #3

luvrh — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:51:50 GMT

I don't care about winning $100 Million+ jackpots to be honest. $50-$60 million is big enough to me.

Comment #2

lottocalgal — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:27:23 GMT

Lottery commission representatives in California and Ohio, both Mega Millions states, said they will not be participating in the Powerball cross-over on Jan. 31

I knew it. California wouldn't of course.

Comment #1

TheGameGrl — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:00:43 GMT

Thanks for posting this article! I wasnt aware of the states that are going to commence the addition of the Large jackpot games.

Its great if you are into choosing a game . I just am a dedicated Powerball player since that is how amy resident state started out. Will be nice to play mega from time to time though and not have to go one state over.... I fear though that my state (PA) will start the taxing of these wins since those will be high revenue for them then....they already are doing so o... [ More ]

Dual multi-state lottery sales may keep jackpots lower

Lottery Post — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:34:02 GMT

New national game at least a year away

When dozens of states start selling both Powerball and Mega Millions lottery tickets for the first time ever, winners may take home jackpots that aren't so mega.

As part of a deal announced last October, the combined sales begin Jan. 31 in 23 of the 31 states and Washington D.C. where Powerball is currently offered, according to Tom Shaheen, president of the Multi-State Lottery Association that operates Powerball. The two different lottery systems hav... [ More ]