The first 9 tickets of the 1031 drawn in the Florida Lottery’s 4th Annual New Year’s Eve Holiday Raffle were each awarded $1mil. The Florida Lottery will also award 10 prizes of $50,000, 12 prizes of $5,000 and 1,000 prizes of $500.
Winning numbers will be posted by 3PM today on floridalottery.com
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.
You’re running out of time to make second-chance entries on four Florida Lottery scratch-off games. The drawings are Tuesday, but the entry deadline for the three football-related contests is midnight Saturday.
Losing Big Riches tickets are eligible for the Florida Gators drawing, $50 Grand for the FSU Seminoles drawing and Lucky 7′s for the Miami Hurricanes drawings. All are $5 tickets. There are three prizes for the FSU and Miami contests, but just two for the Gators.
Grand prize for each is a trip to the school’s bowl game. For Miami and FSU, second prize involves season tickets and third prize includes four tickets to one game next year. For the Gators, second prize is a tailgate party (or the items you need for one), but no tickets.
Deadline for entering losing $10 Winner Wonderland tickets is midnight Monday. Grand prize winners get two nights at the hotel at the Florida Mall and a $5,000 Florida Mall shopping spree along with some other goodies. Second prize winners get $1,000 gift cards to the mall and third prize winners get $500 gift cards.
The Florida Lottery is busy with behind-the-scenes preparations for Powerball. Tickets go on sale in Florida on January 4th. The first drawing is January 7th.
Lottery spokeswoman Jackie Barreiros says computers are getting software downloads so they’ll be able to sell the tickets and workers will be putting up Powerball billboards in the coming weeks.
When Florida joins the game, Powerball will include 30 states, Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands.
Barreiros says Florida’s preparations are right on track so far. She says the state is trying to get the word out about how the game works and how you win.
Jackpots currently start at $15 million, but that will be increased to $20 million when Florida players start buying tickets in January.
Barreiros says the Lottery Department expects Lotto sales to drop off when Powerball begins, but the agency is confident players will come back to Lotto. She says workers will be pulling down Lotto billboards and replacing them with Powerball signs, but that doesn’t mean Lotto is going away.
Each Powerball ticket will cost $1. You’ll have an option to pay an extra $1 to multiply the non-jackpot winnings.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 146 million. Good luck!
The jackpot in the Florida Lotto game has grown to $14 million after no one matched the six winning numbers in the latest drawing, lottery officials said.
A total of 59 tickets matched five numbers to win $6,073.50 each; 3,982 tickets matched four numbers for $73 each; and 80,344 tickets matched three numbers for $5 each.
The winning Florida Lotto numbers selected Wednesday night: 4-19-29-32-44-49.
