Tennessee in the future will sell both Mega Millions and Powerball lottery tickets.
That’s after a unanimous vote today by the Tennessee Education Lottery Commission to allow the practice. It’s not clear when Tennessee will begin offering both games, said commission chairman Jim Hill, of Signal Mountain.
Eventually, Mr. Hill said, the move will generate another $30 million to $40 million in lottery revenue and send about $10 million to $15 million to fund the state’s HOPE scholarships.
“There are people who say they only play the lottery when the jackpot is over $200 million,” Mr. Hill said. “So as statistics have it, you will always have one big game that is in the hundreds of millions and the other that isn’t if you offer both games.”
Tennessee’s lottery revenues were slow over the last 12 months as Powerball, the current multi-state big game offered here, had low potential jackpots. Mega Millions, by comparison, offered jackpots in the $300 million range and attracted many consumers to buy tickets.
Mega Millions is played in 12 states including Georgia. Powerball is played in 31 and the U.S. Virgin Islands. North Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee play Powerball. Alabama is one of only seven states in the U.S. not to offer a lottery.
For complete details, see tomorrow’s Chattanooga Times Free Press.
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 ...
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