Texas Lottery players: Powerball tickets may soon be sold at a store near you.
Back in in 2003 when the Texas Lottery Commission added the Mega Millions game, the chairman at the time said, why not add Powerball as well?
Six years later, it looks like that is exactly what's going to happen.
Everyone who's ever bought a Texas Lotto ticket is hoping for just one thing.
"That occasionally you might hit the big one and then it's off to the Mediterranean or something you never know," said Ricardo Guerrero
You can play Mega Millions here in Texas. But if you want a piece of the Powerball jackpot you are out of luck unless you want to go out of state. But the Texas Lottery Commission is hoping to change that.
"I think it's an advantage to bring Powerball in because I think it adds to our game mix," said Bobby Heith, the director of media relations for the Texas Lottery Commission.
It's expected that shortly after the first of the year, you'll be able to buy Powerball tickets in state — an idea regular lotto players find appealing.
"Just that, it's here and not elsewhere, I've played it in a few other states and just that idea of a much bigger payoff is nice," said Charles Rolling.
The Texas Lottery Commission says those interested in Powerball can still play Mega Millions.
"So as those jackpots grow they compete along those boards you could assume, so hopefully now with us selling both games it will generate incremental revenue for the state of Texas," Heith said.
Rob Kohler, with the Christian Life Commission says whether its Powerball or Mega Millions, week in and week out, draw games don't generate that much revenue so adding one more may hurt more than help.
"As an organization we don't think it's smart or good public policy to raise funds through the folks that can least afford it," Kohler said.
Central Texans we talked to were either indifferent or excited about Powerball coming to Texas.
"Indifferent because I've never played I guess I should say hooray for someone but I haven't played," said Austinite Mary Sheek.
"Anything they can do to get more money into their coffers that would be good as long as people enjoy giving it away by playing the lotto because that's what we do, let's go for it," Guerrero said.
Several details must still be worked out before the decision to sell Powerball tickets in Texas shortly after the first of the year becomes official.
The largest Powerball jackpot ever was $365 million.
The largest Mega Millions jackpot was $390 million — still the largest lottery jackpot in North America.
I've always wondered why this hasn't been done before. I thought that perhaps it was due to contractual restraints but it must not be.
I think it's a great idea and hope it spreads to other states. I'll bet that MM will be wanting to get even by getting into some PB state now.
I hope someone (me) wins both the MegaMillions and the Powerball using the same numbers.
I was in the room when the conversations were had as far as what game to go with.
Lots and lots of research went into the decision. Both games were major revenue drivers. Both were well established "brands".
The MUSL people that came out and spoke to the Texas Lottery were smug (and perhaps even arrogant). Joining MUSL (at least at the time) also required a lot of cost and administrative activity that were of dubious value. The only real upside was the Powerplay option. My thought was - "fine - do your own multiplier" - which they did when the went with Mega Millions.
Having both games will probably not grow the overall pie that much - it will probably just split the available "large jackpot lotto $$$" among more games. Probably with a further negative impact to Lotto Texas. With 2 big multi-state jackpot games, they might want to consider increasing the matrix on Texas 2 Step and putting Lotto Texas to bed...
A player enters the Store. He or she usually plays $10 on the Mega. Do they say "Give me $5 Mega and $5 Powerball" OR do they say "Which jackpot is higher? Give me $10 all on that one!" ? If too many States take both games, whichever game has a lower jackpot is going to stagnate as the other one shoots way up! The games should merge, and the matrix should be similar as it is now, not adding more balls, because there would be still $100M+ jackpots and they'd happen more often! Instead of adding more balls to go for $500M+ jackpots but with unreasonable odds on lower prizes.
Hopefully they will up the ticket price to $5 each instead of upping the odds.
It looks like more states are looking into offering both Mega Millions and Powerbal. I hope my state picks up the idea soon. I emailed them, but haven't received a response yet.
That sounds like the best idea yet to me.