MO Lottery Blog

Gadget Giveaway

A new promotion will run during the month of February giving players a chance to win new technologies like a GPS device or a big-screen TV.  Players who spend $3 on a single Pick 3 or Pick 4 ticket between Feb. 1 and Feb. 28, will receive a voucher ticket for a chance to win a prize in one of three drawings.  In each drawing, we'll award one player a Sharp Aquos® 65-inch 1080p LCD Television, five players an iPhone™, 20 players a Garmin® GPS navigator, and 25 players an iPod® Touch.

The nice thing about this promotion is that both Pick 3 and Pick 4 are eligible games.  Find out more about the "Fabulous February Gadget Giveaway" here, or look for information at your favorite Missouri Lottery retail location.  Good luck. 

Where it's at

Big winners in last night's drawing.  Someone here in central MO is sitting pretty thanks to a $1.6 million Lotto jackpot.  A ticket sold at Fast Lane in Ashland matched all six numbers.  Plus, one player matched five white-ball numbers in Powerball to win $200,000.  Note that if they had chosen the Power Play option, that would have been an $800,000 prize.

Another lucky player hit the jackpot in Show Me Cash on Tuesday.  A ticket worth $65,000 was sold at Bob's Liquor in St. Louis.   
The Powerball jackpot for Jan. 31 is an estimated $42 million.  Good luck!

Plotting the winners

Several of you expressed interest in seeing what cities sold Million-Dollar Raffle winning tickets.  I got a list of the retail locations that sold winning raffle tickets and plotted all 445 of them.  In towns that had more than one winner (I'm looking at you, St. Joseph) I included the number in the notes.  Sure, St. Louis and Kansas City have a lot of winners, but remember, more than 80 percent of our states population resides in those greater metropolitan areas.  You'll see that winners come from just about every part of the state, but it's still just the luck of the draw.  Hannibal was shut out this time, but I'm sure they'll be back in future games and promotions.  Like they say, you can't win, if you don't play. 


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Winning is random

I got a note from Brenda in Poplar Bluff who complained that there hasn't been any $1,000 winners in "Lifetime Riches" lately.  She went on to say that she knows these tickets sell heavily in the area and she was going to alert the newspaper about the fact that the citizens were getting "ripped off" by that game.  I tried to respond, but her e-mail was defective.  Here's what I would have said...
We don't know where the winners are going to come from until they claim their prize.  Since tickets are distributed randomly throughout the state, there may or may not be any big winners in that particular game in your town.  Our records indicate that there are a number of large prizes left in the game "Lifetime Riches," but we have no idea where they are. 
Just looking at last month's all-winner press release, I see that there was one $10,000 winner and at least four $1,000 winners in Popular Bluff during December.  They might not have won on "Lifetime Riches," but they definitely won money playing Scratchers. 
Here's the thing - we hope no one ever feels like they are getting "ripped off."  It's important to remember that playing the Lottery is not a path to wealth, but something you do for entertainment and always within your means.  The Lottery is designed to return a percentage of the money we generate to fund public education in Missouri.  The very nature of gambling dictates that most players will spend more than they win.  Of course, people do win and win big, but it's impossible to predict or control.  One person could spend a lot of money on tickets and not significantly impact their odds of winning.  It's just the luck of the draw. 

Where it's at

We had a few big winners over the weekend.  We sold our 17th Show Me Cash jackpot.  Someone who buys tickets at Sharp's Amoco in Bethany is holding a ticket worth more than $212,000. 
There was a big Club Keno winner in St. Joseph.  A ticket worth more than $13,000 was sold at Adam's Bar and Grill. 
And two lucky players matched four white-ball numbers and the Powerball to win $10,000.  Those tickets were sold at the following locations: 

• Fisca Oil on E. 23rd St. in Kansas City
• QuikTrip on St. Charles Rock Road in Bridgeton

The Powerball jackpot for Jan. 28 is an estimated $30 million. 

What's on your mind?

There were a lot of questions over the weekend and some hot topics to discuss.  I'll be watching the blog closely today, so fire away and I'll try and get you an answer. 

Twice is nice

Here's a story about the same Pick 3 numbers coming up twice in a row in Nebraska.  To some of you, that's an indication of foul play.  But to others, it might signify that it's not fixed.  Random is unpredictable.  That means long shots come up sometimes. 
The article states that the occurrence of back-to-back winning numbers is one-in-a-million odds.  There are two ways of looking at that - you should expect it every million draws (or sooner since each drawing is an independent event), or that it should never happen because of the long odds.  Keep in mind that your odds of winning Powerball are about 1 in 195 million, but people do win...

Mash the Motor!

Want to attend a Monster Truck Jam in Kansas City?  My Lottery members have the exclusive opportunity to win tickets from the Missouri Lottery.  Listen to the commercial or visit here for more details.  Good luck. 

Download MTM09

Where it's at

Only one big winner in last night's drawings - a player who buys tickets at QuikTrip on Mid Rivers Mall Dr. in St. Peters matched four white-ball numbers and the Powerball to win $10,000. 

The Powerball jackpot for Jan. 24 is an estimated $25 million.  Check out Show Me Cash.  Tonight's jackpot (1/22) is an estimated $170,000! 

MDR

We now know the locations that the top five winning Million-Dollar Raffle tickets were sold.  We sold nearly 172,000 tickets for this game, which is short of our goal, but we did meet liability.  The winning tickets were purchased at the following locations: 

$1 million -  QuikTrip on S. Fifth in St. Charles

$100,000 -   Snappy Stores on Industrial in Licking

$100,000 -   The T-Stop in Savannah

$100,000 -   7-Eleven on Strauss Drive in Park Hills

$100,000 -  Rush Hour on NE Colburn in Lee's Summit

Thanks for playing and congratulations to all the winners.