THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 31, 1996 TAG: 9608310367
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KIA MORGAN ALLEN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 68 lines
For Virginia lottery players who want a bigger bang for their buck, today's the day.
Starting at 6 this morning, the Virginia Lottery kicks off The Big Game, the weekly lotto game hooked up with Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Michigan.
The jackpot starts at $5 million and can reach $50 million. The new game is expected to generate more than $500 million in annual lottery sales for the six states combined, lottery officials said.
``Our players have been telling us for years they want these big-jackpot games,'' Virginia Lottery Director Penelope Kyle said Friday. ``The only way for us to do it was to go in with other states. This seemed to be an opportune time to do it.''
And here's how you do it: Players pay $1 to choose six numbers, just as in Virginia's twice-weekly Lotto game. But in The Big Game, five numbers are chosen, from 1 to 50, and a sixth number from 1 to 25. Players can buy tickets at any of Virginia's 3,200 online retailers.
There's another difference between the starts-at-$1 million Lotto game and this new one: The odds of winning The Big Game jackpot are 1 in 53 million, compared with 1 in 7.1 million for Lotto. You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning: 1 in 1.9 million.
The first drawing will be at 11 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6, lottery officials said. Players can watch the live drawing locally on WGN-TV (Channel 27) and can see The Big Game numbers during the Friday night drawing show for the Lotto and Kicker numbers, shown about 11:10 p.m.
``We think our players will love it, and the general public will like it because we're generating more revenue for educational purposes in Virginia,'' Kyle said.
There isn't much difference between The Big Game and the multistate Powerball, which has been around for several years and has generated jackpots of more than $100 million. Kyle said there are nine ways to win Big Game prizes with a $1 play. Matching five of six numbers can win $150,000, for example, and prizes also can be won by matching as few as one number. The odds of winning any prize are 1 in 22, lottery officials said.
In Powerball, played in 21 states, players also pick five numbers from a pool of 1 to 50 and one number from 1 to 25. Prizes vary from winning the jackpot to winning $1. ILLUSTRATION: Chart
THE ODDS
Chance of winning The Big Game lottery is 1 in 53 million. Odds of
winning the Virginia Lotto jackpot are 1 in 7.1 million. Your
chances are considerably better, though the result is less
desirable, of dying by:
Car trip, coast to coast:
1 in 14,000
Bicycle accident:
1 in 88,000
Tornado: 1 in 450,000
Train, coast to coast:
1 in 1 million
Airline crash: 1 in 10 million
Bee sting: 1 in 5.5 million
Source: Travel Weekly, 1994
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA LOTTERY by CNB