ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Mega Millions could be on its way to New Mexico as early as next year if the New Mexico Lottery Board decides offering two giant-jackpot games here makes monetary sense.
The recent announcement that Mega Millions and Powerball were teaming up is giving all states including New Mexico the opportunity to sell chances for both.
Powerball player Jon Rowlay said he thinks the state should go for it.
“I think it's a great idea," he said. “I think we're all kind of people that like to take chances every once in a while."
However the decision is not as easy for the New Mexico Lottery. For the next few weeks its board will be crunching numbers to see if adding the new game will help or hurt lottery revenues in New Mexico.
“We have to look at how much it's going to cost to market that game,” Lottery spokeswoman Linda Hamlin said.
According to Hamlin the costs can add up quickly. If they decide to take on the national game New Mexico Lottery will need to print out Mega Millions bubble sheets, change lottery vending machines, reprogram machines and retrain sales clerks.
While signing up could be a big gamble for New Mexico lottery, the stakes could be even higher if the state decides not to jump on the Mega Millions bandwagon.
If neighboring states like Texas decide to sell both Mega Millions and Powerball some New Mexicans could take their money elsewhere.
“The players who are in New Mexico will go over to go buy Mega Millions in Texas and buy their Powerball there,” Hamlin said, “It's what's convenient; it's what's simple, and who can blame them?”
If sales drop money for the lottery scholarship could decrease, too.
The rules to Powerball and Mega Millions are remarkably similar. The big difference is Powerball drawings are on Wednesday and Saturday; Mega Millions draws numbers on Tuesday and Friday.
The largest Powerball jackpot ever was $365 million. The record for a Mega Millions jackpot was $390 million.
While MUSL's biggest jackpot was $365 million, $15 million less than Mega Millions', it is a much larger organization. The lottery company, which is based in Iowa, operates in 30 states, as well as the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Its most popular program is Powerball, but it offers a variety of games, including Hot Lotto, Wildcard 2, and Ca$hola. Since 2007, it has even offered a multi-state scratch game, Midwest Millions. Like Mega Millions, MUSL pays out half its revenues in prizes; the other half, however, goes directly to the member states. MUSL gets its operating income from earnings on its lottery accounts, bond swaps, and licensing fees.
On Tuesday, these two behemoths announced their plans to cross-sell their tickets. This move, which they hope to launch in early 2010, would enable players in 44 states or territories to play either game, and could provide a major boost to both sales and jackpots. To put it another way, a player in Arizona, which currently has only Powerball, could buy tickets for both Powerball and Mega Millions.
The two companies are also working together to create a national lottery, which would cover the same 44 states. Launching as early as fall 2010, tickets would probably be in the $2 to $5 price range, and the game would be independent of the Powerball and MegaMillions cross-selling program.
And if a national lottery isn't impressive enough, MUSL is also working with Camelot, a British lottery company, to set up a worldwide lottery. Carrying payouts along the lines of £250 million, or over $394 million, the game would have a weekly draw, and unclaimed jackpots would roll over to create world-record jackpots. Like America's regional lotteries, much of the money raised by the world lotto would help fund schools, highways, or other public programs. While many details of the world lotto program still need to be ironed out, Camelot is hoping to launch it as soon as 2011.
If MUSL and Mega Millions work together to set up a single national lottery, they will likely be able to massively increase their jackpots. What they are less likely to increase is the chance of winning. As the popular comparison states, you have a much greater (almost seven times greater, to be exact) chance of being struck by lightning. However, to offer a few more colorful examples, you are 18 times more likely to be killed by flesh-eating bacteria than to win the lottery, and 288 times more likely to be legally executed. On the other hand, you are probably five percent less likely to be elected President.
Gotta say, I like those odds.
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