A Tennessee retailer who sells a Powerball ticket that nets the multimillion-dollar grand prize will receive a reward $25,000.
The Tennessee Lottery board set the figure yesterday during its regular meeting.
Rebecca Paul, president and chief executive officer of the Tennessee Education Lottery Corp., told the board that a decision is a week or two away on when Powerball tickets will begin selling in late spring.
During the meeting, the lottery also introduced two new scratch-off games, continuing the strategy of bringing out new games every two weeks.
The board made a slight change on scratch-off games. Players now will have to sign each winning ticket before redeeming them.
Players can try winning as much as $30,000 by paying $2 for the Happy Mother's Day game. Or they can pay $1 for a chance at $4,000 with Country Cash.
With these games, the lottery has introduced a total of 17 since starting Jan. 20. Paul said total sales are about $223 million.
Lucky 7's, one of the first four games introduced by the lottery, continues to hold the top-selling spot.
When Powerball tickets begin selling, sales are expected to help push lottery profits well beyond the $88 million needed by July to cover college scholarships for the fall semester.
Tennessee is the 26th lottery to join Powerball, which had average jackpots of nearly $60 million last year.
Players choose six numbers. The sixth is the Powerball. Players can win $100,000 by matching five numbers, excluding the Powerball, with the balls drawn on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. Picking the Powerball along with five numbers earns the grand prize.
Powerball states vary in how they reward their retailers. Some states don't pay. Several lotteries pay higher rewards than what Tennessee has put in place.
The District of Columbia, for example, pays $100,000 to the retailer selling the grand prize ticket. Retailers, however, earn 5% commissions on selling tickets compared with Tennessee's 6.5%. Idaho pays a 5% commission and a $50,000 for a grand prize ticket.
Several other states pay lower amounts than Tennessee. Delaware and Kansas, for example, pay $10,000.
"Twenty-five thousand dollars on top of the 6.5% we felt was fair," Paul said, later saying, "We think our retailers will like that instead of nothing."
If more than one Tennessee retailer sells a winning ticket, the $25,000 is shared. Lottery officials said that is rare occurrence.
Nobody has commented on this story yet.