The last $10.00 ticket of the allotted 250,000 has been sold in the Idaho Lottery New Year’s Eve Raffle. The drawing will take place 1 minute before 10pm on Tuesday with a top prize of $1mil , four $15k prizes, 500 $300.00 prizes, and 150 $100.00 prizes.
Lottery officials said ticket purchase rates were topping 1000/hour before the last one was bought.
We’re hearing it everywhere, Lottery sales are finally starting to fall into a rut as the economy’s deathgrip tightens on players. New York has bucked the trend, mainly because of the 12% increase in Video Lotto revenue. On average, most states are posting a 2% decline in lottery sales but New York is posting a 3% increase because of slot-machine like lottery machines the state deployed at raceracks and other gambling facilities.
Over the past 8 months, the New York Lottery has generated approximately $709mil (vs $636mil same period last year) from it’s 8 video parlors. A large amount of this gameplay can be contributed to less people travelling to Atlantic City and other gambling Mecas do to the tightening economy. The same folks that used to load up the car and drive 6 hours to go to a casino now just drive down the street to pull the Lottery Slot Machine Lever, keeping the money inside the state.
Last year, the New York Lottery generated $2.6 billion. This amount accounted for 13% of the NY School Systems operating budgets.
Rhode Island’s state lottery is getting in on the New Year’s Eve Raffle craze this year, offering a top prize of $1mil, 10 prizes for $10k, 100 prizes for $500, and 500 prizes for $100.00. Each raffle ticket costs $20.00. There is a 1 in 120,000 chance to win the million. …read more.
This Sunday will be the first time in Powerball’s 16 year history that Florida residence could buy the tickets in their own state. Florida lottery officials explained there had been a long term debate raging on if allowing Powerball ticket sales would draw away from Florida’s own state lottery.
Florida will now be the largest state offering Powerball tickets. Some experts predict a “lotto fever” as initial sales will quickly boost the Powerball Jackpot, which is already close to $80mil. Recently announced changes to the Powerball Game should also increase interest over the short-term in the 29 other states that already sell Powerball Lotto tickets.
The powerball is ushering in the New Year with a huge jackpot for Wednesday night’s drawing. I’m glad to see we get one last mega jackpot out of the Powerball before new game changes take affect January 7th 2009.
The changes include $20mil base grand prize minimum, odds of winning any prize have increase about 1/2%. The location where the PowerBall drawing takes place is also moving to Floriday. Stay tuned for more changes as they are announced, and play this current jackpot for all it’s worth. Maybe you’ll get some New Year’s Eve luck 
Delaware Lottery officials commented that sales trends for this year’s new years even raffle were “sluggish”. Tickets cost $10.00 and can be purchased until 3pm on Dec 31,2008. The top prize is $250,000 cash.
Virginia lottery officals are praying in the streets that there is some sort of late miracle surge in tickets for this years New Years Eve Raffle. So far, lottery officials say they have not even sold 1/2 of their goal of 400,000+ tickets. Lottery officials stated they needed to sell 300,000 tickets tickets to break even, and had sold around 190,000 tickets so far.
The last New Years Eve Raffle Virgina held in 2007 sold out 8 hours before the drawing.
A single individual has won the Enormous Mega Millions Jackpot. The winner was from Ohio. No other details have been released.
Mega Millions Lottery announced after no winners on Friday, the jackpot has increased from $146mil to $170mil. The next Mega Millions drawing is Tuesday Night. If no one wins Tuesday’s Jackpot, Friday’s jackpot could soar over $200mil.
There were no lucky winners for the Mega Millions lottery jackpot Tuesday night. Lottery officials said that over 900,000 prizes were won, however, the jackpot was rolled over from $128mil to $146mil. With this jackpot closing in on $150mil lottery sales are expected to be extremely heavy for Friday night’s 11PM EST drawing.
Tuesday’s winning numbers were: 2, 17, 22, 32, 51 and the Mega Ball number was 35.
