The Tennessee Education Lottery on Sunday will debut its first totally in-state game that allows players to win $1 million or more, said Kym Gerlock, a lottery spokeswoman.
“What we are going to see is more Tennessee players who win $1 million or more,” Ms. Gerlock said. “The only way to win a million now is to play Powerball.”
Lotto Plus will have a jackpot of $1 million, and if no one wins the Tuesday drawing the jackpot will increase each week, Ms. Gerlock said.
She said there is a better chance for Tennessee to produce winners with Lotto Plus because, unlike Powerball, it will be played only in Tennessee. Powerball players compete against players in 31 states. There are bigger jackpots, but the odds of winning them are about 1 in 147 million, Ms. Gerlock said.
Lotto Plus players will select any six numbers from one to 44 or allow the computer to randomly select them. Tickets sell for $1 each. If three, four, five or six of those numbers are drawn in any order the player wins. If no one wins, the jackpot increases by $100,000 for the next week, Ms. Gerlock said.
If there is more than one winner, the jackpot is split.
“I like the better odds (of Lotto Plus), so I will probably play both,” said Doris Metz, who plays Powerball regularly. “It’s just a dollar a week.”
Lottery officials also have renamed the Lotto 5 game and added a new prize level. Players of that game now can win by matching two of five numbers in addition to the current prizes for matching three, four and five numbers, Ms. Gerlock said.
Tennessee directs its lottery earnings to specific education programs, including college scholarships, prekindergarten and after-school programs. Since its inception in January 2004, the lottery has directed $1 billion to those initiatives, records show.
-
Tennessee Lottery
FAST FACTS
* Tennessee Lottery players have won more than $2 billion in prizes since the game’s inception in January 2004.
* The largest prize was won March 30, 2005, when a South Pittsburg man won the multistate Powerball drawing worth $25.5 million.
* More than 835 players have won $50,000 or more, including 22 winners of $1 million or more.
Source: Tennessee Education Lottery
Adam Crisp covers education issues for the Times Free Press. He joined the paper's staff in 2007 and initially covered crime, public safety, courts and general assignment topics. Prior to Chattanooga, Crisp was a crime reporter at the Savannah Morning News and has been a reporter and editor at community newspapers in southeast Georgia. In college, he led his student paper to a first-place general excellence award from the Georgia College Press Association. He earned ...
Or login with:
New Account