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 have not been sold in the same state before.
But with all the addition players, Shaheen expects the jackpots to fill up quickly, resulting in more winners but lighter takes.
"With more people playing, you have a better chance of someone winning earlier," he said. "There will probably be more jackpot winners over the course of the year, because you've got more players and more number combinations. That's what players keep saying: They want more winners."
As a result, there will be fewer jackpots as high as $300 million, and more of them in the $100 million to $150 million range, according to Shaheen.
Where to buy
The following Powerball states will begin offering Mega Millions tickets at the end of the month: Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
New York lottery spokeswoman Jennifer Givner said her state, which sells Mega Millions tickets, will also sell Powerball tickets on Jan. 31. Givner said she could not speak for other unidentified Mega Millions states that will sell Powerball tickets.
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, but they didn't rule out joining late on.
"We're right in the middle of analyzing whether it would be a good idea to join Powerball," said California lottery spokesman Bill Ainsworth. He said that California already offers a second lottery in addition to Mega Millions, called SuperLotto Plus.
Ohio Lottery spokeswoman Marie Kilbane Seckers said the potential overlap with Powerball is still awaiting approval from the governor and the lottery commissioners.
The return of gigantic payouts
Players with eyes on the larger prize will eventually be able to participate in a national lottery with jackpots that could reach $500 million, Shaheen said.
Tickets for that lottery would cost $2 or $5 each, and would not be available until December or the beginning of 2011.
The current jackpot for Mega Millions is $60 million, with a draw date of Jan. 12. Powerball's current jackpot is $30 million with a draw date of Jan. 13.
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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 over the gaming (casinos)....
"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.
I don't care about winning $100 Million+ jackpots to be honest. $50-$60 million is big enough to me.
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.
Are they leading up to a matrix increase again?????
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 knowing that you don't have to work until your;re 70 or 80. Since Mega Millions and I have issues, I would love to play Powerball but California killed my dreams on that one. I try to never play Mega: i make my husband play that one cause he seems to have better luck with it. But if Powerball came to Calif, I would not stop playing SLP and definately not Fantasy five, I would just add Powerball to it. Maybe not Five lines but A single line for every draw. $2 is not much but multipe that by thousands of people and it adds up.
I see where this is going.We are going to have a national lottery very soon.
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.
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.
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?
I can't imagine anyone being "disappointed" with a $20 million jackpot.
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"
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 !
'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!
I say the more Jackpot winners, the better for everyone .....!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
I will take what ever I can get at this point...$12, $20, $60....$100+ Million.
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.
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...
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.
I analyzed your argument and posted a thread in the jackpots forum.
You are actually on to something.
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...
I like that idea TnTicket. I bet there's a lot of other people who do too.
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.
That's exactly how I feel.
Cool. Now I can play 4 times a week.
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.
"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 that even 5million would do for us since we are all pretty much simple "hard working (or retired) folk".
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 been happier if two of those matches had been on the same line. The three and the bonus ball would have paid $150.
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 !!!!!!!!
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 Mega Millions tickets begins January 31, AND there will be a Megaplier.
My plans are to play MM & PB for $1 per draw, plus the office pool which starts when a jackpot reaches $50 million.
Pennsylvania will have a Megaplier !
Right you are. Average Jackpots should stay about the same. There will just be more Jackpots hit more often.
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.
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 should be an "option" in ones budget. Not an increase for a demand to recover a states financial budget. And by adding more multi state games in more states, that's pretty sad. I'm glad Ohio did not join Powerball. Playing what is available is overwhelming as it is.
So, in the long run, don't exceed your personal budget or else you will probably be doomed by spending more on the lottery just because it is there to play.
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.
There is such a game. It is Powerball with Multiplier.
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.
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 can expect faster growth to the 100 million range to be the norm. Since greater sales will result in a greater chance of a winner in any given drawing, we can expect that rollovers will be less likely, so for any given jackpot size the chance of a rollover will be less than it is at present. So, we should expect bigger rollovers, happening a bit less often. When we do get to the 200 to 225 range, bigger sales mean that a rollover should push jackpots to 300 or more with one roll instead of two, so there should be a better chance of seeing jackpots of 300 million and more. That will be balanced by the increased chance of multiple winners that will come with more tickets in play.
"Facts are with more states participating, the starting jackpot should increase too."
Maybe we'll see that happen down the road, but don't count on it. At present, the sales for the first drawing don't put enough in the prize pool to cover the starting jackpot, so on the (rare) occasions that there's a winner the lottery doesn't earn their expected profit. Of course, most of the time there are at least a few rolls, and they can pay the jackpot and still get the profit they plan on. If typical sales increase to the point that the starting jackpot is covered, then we should see a modest increase. Obviously we shouldn't have a starting jackpot that's less than what's actually in the prize pool.
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?
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 that personal identities MUST BE PUBLICIZED in order to show all players that "Real People REALLY DO WIN"
as well as letting authorities/creditors know "erstwhile deadbeats now have real deep pockets, come feed, take as much as you want but eat all you take!" While this measure insures "baddies don't get away with it..."
It also exposes otherwise honest tax-paying bill-paying winners to IDENTITY THEFT!
99 times out of 100, this thought is NEVER realy contemplated, especially in states where winners are compelled (probably through LOOSE interpretation of 'rules') to "go along to get along" and they don't mind the immediate publicity all that much....
but in too many Winner's "where are they now" stories, (Jack Whittaker, and for some here in KY, back in the late 90's/early 00's a Florence native) the windfall, and the publicity brought NOTHING BUT HEARTACHE, and Tragedy....the money gets eaten up faster than a winner could responsibly get ahold of managing it. All the while, the media hits the poor sucker with the glare of the spotlight, exacerbating the problem further....and in the end they become dead, broken, and worse off than when they won...
In my state, Identity control is squelched in favor of publicizing, to promote "Honest wins", and making sure "baddies don't get away with it...."
And my question is...what do you do if you find yourself holding the ticket, and have to run this gauntlet, to get the money?
Up until now, the responses I have recived were completely inadequate. they ranged from phony beards, to "move to another state" to "well just have your lawyer handle everything" to "Oh, well, you better get a good TAX ACCOUNTANT, because your tax rate just shot to the moon!"
Some of you remember reading the John Stienbeck story of "The Black Pearl?" In the end that poor man, and his family, were so torn at by others, that he cursed that pearl he found and threw it back into the sea....
There MUST be a way to have a third party shield your identity, in states such as these, so as not to let either the state's clamor for regulation-keeping trample on your 4th ammendment rights, when you DO attempt to claim, or any lawyer's suggestion for a TRUST vehicle that you agree to, completely eat up your windfall due to TRUST vehicle overhead....
What must you do....because now you are that poor indigent who just found the "Black Pearl"
IL is getting Powerball end of the month. Heard from place that I buy my tickets from.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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 reasons that states are having budget shortfalls for lottery funded programs is because people travel to where they think they can win, to the neighboring state. If you lived 1hr from your state line and the opposing game was being played there and say for instance there were about 5 jackpot hits at the store right across the state line.....you can believe that the sales for that store are going to increase and your state is loosing dollars all because you don't want to give too many options......you won't stay in business very long like that.
LOL as far as your comment about chasing every dream that lotteries put out there.......lol no worse than all the people chasing dreams in LA to be a big time actor or people chasing a dream of being a big time singer (American Idol) ................why should people settle for mediocrity when they can dream and aspire to be something/someone bigger & greater than they are. I'm not saying I'm not happy with my life as it is.....I love my life but I would just be a depressed ostrich with my head in the ground if it stayed like this until i took my last breath. As long as I am alive I am going to aspire for more. Why would I not want to be ambitious and long for more. I'm not saying that the lottery is the only way that I will attain more but (being one of my many dreams) it would be nice.
"I'm glad Ohio did not join Powerball" .........I hate to be the one to break it to you but it was just confirmed today that Ohio will be adding Powerball on 1/31. I guess your only other option it to just move to a state that doesn't have lottery and then you won't have as many woes about playing.
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 it just fine.......well as far as we know but if they have issues we don't hear about it in the news.
Me personally I can't wait to see that lottery sign go over 400 million.....I already know how to handle it and I'm well prepared too
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
Here's one news story reporting that Ohio will be offering Powerball.
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.
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.
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.
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 participate in cross-selling or join a national lottery.
"It's totally an option for every state. They can opt out of it ifthey'd like to. We don't need any particular requirements as far as howmany to do it," Shaheen said.
Such a super lottery could happen by next fall, said Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Powerball group."
I can sum up this article with one word....
Duh.