Tickets on sale Sept. 8
by Todd Northrop
Seven United States lotteries will offer a first-of-its-kind multi-state raffle that goes on sale in about a week.
Called the Multi-state Millions Raffle (and possibly other names in the participating states), it's guaranteed to hand out $1 million prizes — just how many depends on how many of the $10 tickets are sold in the participating states.
"All of the lotteries are looking for new ideas and new games and new things to do to generate revenue," Ohio Lottery spokeswoman Danielle Frizzi-Babb said. "This one comes with less financial risk. We're in it with a large group."
The Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) in Urbandale, Iowa, will run the game. It is the same group that now oversees the Mega Millions and Powerball lotteries.
So far, seven state lotteries have committed to the raffle: Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Oklahoma.
Raffle tickets will be on sale at lottery retailers in the seven states from Sept. 8 through Oct. 31. The raffle drawing will take place on Nov. 1.
Unlike Mega Millions and Powerball, in which the money keeps growing until someone matches six numbers, the raffle is guaranteed to hand out cash.
"Raffles are a popular concept and the must-be-won concept is popular with a lot of folks," said Charles Strutt, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association.
He said the plan is to hold the raffle — which will go by different names in different states — only once or twice a year.
The association estimates that there could be 16 to 30 $1 million prizes given out. If there's no $1 million winner drawn from a participating state, there will be a $50,000 runner-up prize awarded to one winner from that state.
In the past decade, raffles have become a somewhat popular and successful new game type in some states. Most states have tried raffles, and a few states have raffle drawings regularly during the year.
For a state lottery, raffles can be risky ventures, because although they typically guarantee certain prize payouts, there is no guarantee they will sell out all the tickets. Although there is still no guarantee of success for the lotteries in a multi-state raffle, banding together with other states may help spread the risk, as well as spreading the marketing cost and impact.
"This is something that really has never been done before," Frizzi-Babb said.
People will be able to buy as many tickets as they want in the upcoming Multi-state Millions Raffle.
Frizzi-Babb said it's not clear how much states could profit from the venture. The Ohio Lottery has estimated it could sell anywhere from $5 million to $10 million in tickets.
Sounds good to me
Oklahoma
is this a joke
Ridge they finally took your idea of a National Raffle Lottery
Thanks rdgrnr for your ideas
I absolutely love the idea. MUSL is finally being used in different ways by the the lotteries. They are an excellent lottery operator, and their involvement normally indicates that the game was thoroughly vetted and will be well-run.
I don't know yet I am the OLC website trying to find more information.
Oh no, NJ is involved. Finally something different. I'm glad, but amazed NY joined in.
Crackin up man, soon as I seen N.Y. on the list I thought they'll win most. LOL
On a more serious note, looks like I found a use for the $208 a year I won't be spending on MM
If they have 2 raffles a year @ $10 a ticket I can afford 10 tix. ea. time and remain on budget.
Well I'm confused. Michigan is advertising a Halloween raffle that starts September 3.
Will we have two raffles running at the same time?
Yeah, seems to me I oughta get free tickets for life or something for comin' up with the idea.
And at least one of 'em a guaranteed million dollar winner.
That's the least they should do.
Not one southern state.
What a rip.
I'd like to know if this was open to all states and only those 7 signed on.
You can B the first winner. Only $10. per ticket.
You're welcome.
So far, seven state lotteries have committed to the raffle: Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Oklahoma.
So how will the draws be conducted? One thing I don't like of the raffles I've seen, is the winners are all picked "behind the curtain" by computer and just kind of show up, you never know the methodology.
I read somewhere else that this will be computer draw also:
"A computer will pull the winning ticket numbers, Frizzi-Babb said."
So will this affect the state's scorecard?
Or, they could do a two stage hybrid draw, pulling the finalists by computer, and then a live raffle manual envelope draw like Irish Natl Lottery below:
Just hope the dude don't drop your friggin' envelope!
Perhaps that information will be in the rules, they are supposed to be published Sat. Aug. 31.
Since raffle tickets are usually sold 000001 thur XXXXXX, it's not hard for a computer to pick a number from 000001 to XXXXXX. Having a live drawing after that would just be for show.
The question isn't being "hard" for a computer to pick, it's the integrity and how trustworthy, or how easy it would be to code a specific number to show up in the list.
Isn't that the point behind the physical ball draws? That everything is seen and out in the open?
In theory, they can do the raffle draws with the same kind of bouncey ping pong ball machines used for pick3/4, just have one for each digit of raffle number.
"In theory, they can do the raffle draws with the same kind of bouncey ping pong ball machines used for pick3/4, just have one for each digit of raffle number."
The problem with ping pong balls is they will come up with any possible number within the perimeters whether that number of tickets were sold or not. They would have to limit the number of tickets to a multiple of 10 and sell every one of them.
It would need some handholding yes, to look out for the very rare duplicate draw. The leftmost digit would be limited (fewer balls) by actual sales, and the rightmost digit would need to be verfied to be within range in the very rare event all the other digits were matching sales, etc. And that methodology may not be fair and equally weighted. How about the computer methodology? Do we get to see the code?
So that's why the two stage hybrid draw I mentioned previously is probably the better way to go. As the Irish Natl Lottery did.
So how far is it to the line to buy tickets...people will travel for this one ridge.....u just take over Tn lottery why dont ya.If I ran it people would play and people would win....just like Georgia and Florida.
206 miles to Louisville ky then over to Indiana...cool
"So how will the draws be conducted?"
That's an interesting question because if the lotteries sell their tickets like RJ suggested, the same ticket number could win in all seven states. Without knowing how many tickets each state lottery will sell, they can't assign 000001 to 500000 for one state and 500001 to 1000000 for the next state especially if one or two states don't sell all their allotted tickets.
If there's no $1 million winner drawn from a participating state, there will be a $50,000 runner-up prize awarded to one winner from that state.
Based on this statement it looks like they will start with ticket 000001 and the tickets sold in each state will be the next available ticket number. We already have conspiracy theories about the recent number of NJ jackpot winners and if the tickets are sold as I suggested, there is a possibility two or three states might get most of the $1 million winners.
From the player's point of view, this raffle does give player the best odds of winning $1 million on a $10 wager.
Right, the first 2 $1 million winners will come from the first $4.6 million in sales. After that each $2 million in sales will produce another $1 million winner. As close to a 50/50 Raffle as it gets.
That's a good point about the multi-state, an extra wrinkle to deal with. They may duplicate the same sequential numbers in each state. Typically, the numbers are assigned by the state's lottery equipment. I suppose it's possible to link multiple states to make a unique list, but I doubt that will happen, too much problems to implement for next month launch.
So they may have to add a left most significant digit to represent each state, for instance, like 01 for NY, 02 for NJ, etc. And then for the draw in their computer algorithm the'd have to weight each state selection differently based on the sales, or else it wouldn't be fair and evenly weighted. Kind of like selecting multipliers for MM and lotto. That's something they can do in a computer, but difficult or very rough with physical balls. Or convert/match all the entries collected from each state to a sequential list for the draw internally.
Still, it could be slightly unfair and not an accurate representation of all states raffle entries. Kinda like our electoral college. We don't know until the methodology is explained. A two stage draw with a final manual draw can help alleviate some concerns of impropriety.
The Dragon Lady is a paty pooper.
TnTicket you are more than welcome in Oklahoma
Lol I meant party pooper to the post above my edit time expired.
2 1/2 hrs if you drive 70 how many you want
It looks like 5 out of the 7 states are going with the Halloween theme. Go the the powerball website to the far right and click on Raffle.
I gotta drive to dadgum Ohio.
They oughta call this the Yankee Raffle.
If I remember right, rdgrnr, not all of Ohio was Yankee during the War of Northern Aggresion.
Of course, not all of Tenneessee was Secesh, so........ (East Tennessee), then there was those fellows wearing butternut, too, so....
Re; A multi-state raffle, won't it be interesting if a state that allows winners to remain anonymous joins in a multi-state affair. We have that now with PB and MM but I'm not sure about raffles.
I can walk the two blocks to pick up my raffle ticket! Yay!!
Thank You all for the caring and all the love spilled over to us in Tennessee, we dont have a chance in any lottery winnings..,,,scratch offs ,picks in any level...I hate the Tn Lottery and not just speaking for myself.I drive to Georgia and Kentucky to play and the joy of playing in those 2 states are so fun and thrilling there is no words to describe it...I just cant play here anymore and I wrote to the office and told them that...Your not going to win here so why play.I feel like if you win more you play more...What ever Rebeca Paul Hargove thinks in her mind she runs a good lottery the whole world has got her badly mistaken.Its not for the players its for her and her only.
remaining anonymous for a raffle seems trite considering it's only a paltry million before taxes. you people don't get even remotely interested in the lottery unless it's 100 million or more so why all this enthusiasm for a raffle which you know they are going to keep even more of it than they do for the bi-weekly games. after taxes you'll get 600k or so, hardly a life changing score. stick with your mm and powerball dreams, this idea will see sales diminish after the fervor dies down beginning with the 2nd one.
We had the same games for years so it's great to see something different. I always get raffles in pa & ct, so it makes sense for NY to try this.
I do fairly well in raffles but I am not too sure about this raffle. It seems like the raffles that they have in MA which stink to high heavens. I like traditional raffles. The kind that have a fixed number of tickets and fixed number of winners, like the PA Millionaire raffle that they hold 2 times a year.
PA Millionaire Raffle Lottery Prizes and Odds
Only 500,000 tickets are printed.
I guess we'll just wait to see the full details of the 7 state MUSL raffle to analyse it properly.
I like the idea.... I live in New York, and not very far from the Connecticut border. Twice per year, CT has been running a raffle called SuperDraw. Top prize is 1 million dollars to just one winner, and the nice thing is a max of just 275,000 tickets at $10 each are sold. That said, it could be less than that if they dont sell out all of the tickets prior to the draw date. I've been playing it since Fall of 2012. Does anybody know the odds for the new multi-state raffle? CT's odd's of 275,000 to 1 (or less if they dont sell out) to win a million bucks is pretty sweet. Never seen better odds than that anywhere to win a million bucks.
Everyone that plays the lottery could use money in any amount.Do I need a Million dollars no I dont. I could use 5 Thousand dollars any time.Why does if have to be a million dollars to attract buyers? Why couldnt it be mulitable winners of 50 Thousand.I guess I look at things different,and I guess I'm not greedy.350 Million going to one person I think is stupid,,,stupid,,,stupid.I like the national raffle.It would help many more folks in these days of troubles.And also these scratch offs should be that way too.You put a 20 Thousand dollar winning ticket out there and have many winners you would have a good selling product.If I had a neighbor that won 20 Thousand and a family win one you better believe I'm gona buy some tickets...
the odds may be 275,000-1 but the tickets cost 10.00 instead of 1.00 which by my math makes the odds 2,750,000-1 which is more than the odds for winning powerball or mm. you would be better off buying 10 mm tickets than playing this. you would really be better off playing ct lotto or ny state lotto than this suckers game.
I'm not sure where you got your numbers from, but in New York, the odds to win 1 million dollars playing MM are 3,904,701 to 1. PB's odds for winning 1 million dollars are 5,153,633 to 1.
The odds to win one million by playing CT's SuperDraw are definitely not "more than the odds for winning powerball or mm".
If you want to play smartly in New York, the way to do it is to double down playing Sweet Million. (Play the same line twice on one ticket) You can win two million dollars by doing that with odds of 3,838,383 to 1. You could add the PowerPlay option in PB and pay 3 bucks a line to win two million, but why would anyone do that when they could play the same line twice in Sweet Million with odds that are approximately 1.3 million to 1 lower.
ok i guess so, some enjoy picking their own numbers rather than relying on a ticket number on a raffle ticket. if you win at either game their is no room for complaint. these states are getting carried away with coming up with new ideas to separate you from your money. one would think they already had enough games to play, but to some a daily or bi-weekly lotto drawing is more appealing that waiting for a boatload of raffle tickets to be sold before finding out you lost. to each his own in that never ending quest to obtain financial freedom.
I agree PA Millionaire Raffle is better. Also what are the rules again? What are the small prizes for this? Not enough info so far.
I dunno...
To my mind The States needed to come up with something new and refreshing. Same old same old gets kinda dull and boring, dontcha think?
Certainly you can play both a raffle and online games, and if instant gratification is your thing, there's always scratch off's.
If anybody's mindset is to play first for financial freedom as opposed to playing first for their own amusment, then I'd say their setting themselves up for disappointment. I mean everybody knows playing the lottery is a sucker's bet. I dont hold my breath each time I buy a ticket of any kind. I simply play to have a little fun, and hope I get struck by lightning in the process.
Oh heck no jerseys in it......ill pass. I can't even win anything in our one state raffle. Why would a multi state raffle be more appealing. Just becuase this is something new doesn't mean its any better then the other wasteful games the lottery has. Its just another way to get a buck from people. How about they have a multi state free raffle......lol...I'm down for that. And for all that play they should issue you a free I'm stupid bumper sticker that goes on your forehead.
I'm voting with my wallet by NOT buying a ticket.
I'm itching to play this game more than once but my OH lottery retailer knows nothing about it. In fact, OH lottery website doesn't have much info on it. There is an FAQ on it you can find by searching press releases (It's not listed as a press release) but there is no other mention of it. I asked my retailer who to see to get it added and they said new games are automatically added by OH over the satellite link.
If this game exists here in OH they are losing money by not making it available and by not promoting it!!
I called the lottery offices and it took them awhile to find anything on it. They say it won't be available until Sept 8th.
DOH! I should have read the article closer. It mentions Sept 8th more than once, in Bold at the beginning too.
Tried to buy a tic today and the paper they have hanging says sept 29. Should of took a pic. Did anyone else get a ticket??
Got a email from NYL saying sales start 9/29 so someone screwed up. That does'nt seem long enough to sell alot of tickets and make it successful. We'll see.
I got my first ticket this morning in OH. Sales started yesterday here. I was the first buyer for the retailer I get most of my tickets from. The ticket number was pretty low IMO for 2nd day of sales. Interest should pickup as more folks find about this raffle.
Yeah Right!
I went into a Mobil station yesterday and asked about it. "Never heard of it" was the response I got.
Thanks for sharing the info. Actually, I'm kind of glad they screwed up. You're right, ticket sales will probably be kind of low simply because there wont be a lot of time to sell them, and because it's new. That means the odds to win the top prize will be low too, but they may not sell a top prize winner in NYS either.
Oklahoma LC finally has it on the webiste tickets avaiable Sept 15 no wonder our lottery suxs
Indiana has not posted it yet!!
Maybe they want to give the little States a chance before the bullys rush in.
This is a conspiracy against The South.
I bet all them northern states intentionally kept The South out.
I bet they were all using "the H word" at their meeting too!
I was talking to a co-worker and I informed her that NY was in it she said they must be in it to generate sales I was like hmm...maybe
I havent heard anyone talking about the raffle
tickets went on sale yesterday and the clerk did not know anthing about it
Halloween Raffle Sept 22nd-Oct 31st
Winning Number Announcements
Early Bird winning numbers will be announced the Monday following each drawing
Stay Updated
Stopped in NJ and they were'nt available yet.
the Lottery here said some different states will be starting them at different times.
They are being innovative with their games which is good for the players. The good thing about this one is that they have a guaranteed winner of $1 million prize. I'm sure players from different states will love this game. I wonder what kind of lottery game are they going to have next.
Got 2 from NY and NJ. Surprised how far off the raffle #s were. Thought they were being sold in order.
Curious if anyone has heard what the count is as far as how many one million dollar winners there'll be? I know it starts out with two and increases based on sales, but I had read an article somewhere stating that state lottery websites would be keeping a tally on their sites, but I haven't been able to locate one. Ohio's site didn't have the total listed last time I checked. I purchased a ticket this morning and the ticket number is a little higher than 58,600, and I'm sure that's just for Ohio. If that's an average amount among the seven states (totalling around 410200 tickets), then the number hasn't increased above the two one million dollar available jackpots yet. Considering the larger populations of NJ and NY guessing their sales are a fair amount higher than Ohio's, so I might be underestimating the total amount sold.
I do like Ohio's second prize: a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited valued at around $29,000, although I'd prefer the cash if I won, which I'm sure is not an option.