Virginia Lottery

Commonwealth of Virginia is responsible of managing and running Virginia Lottery (also known as Virginia State Lottery). The concept of a government-run lottery emerged in this state in 1987 when majority of state residents voted in its favor. This is among those 43 well-popular lotteries in United States that offer tickets to Mega Millions. This lottery is also listed among top 44 lotteries in the country that offer Powerball.

$437 million was funded by this lottery in 2007 to K-12 public schools of the state. Virginia State Lottery has gained a total of $7.55 billion from its inception in 1989 to last year June 2010. The lottery is very active in promoting its gambling activities and spends around $24 million every year for this purpose. The information technology area of this lottery was recently sold to GTECH, a well-popular company (internationally) that manages several lotteries worldwide.

Local retailers are the best point of purchasing its lottery tickets because the tickets can’t be sold by Lottery directly from headquarters. The law also prohibits the Lottery selling tickets online. Winning tickets can’t be cashed out by people under 18 because law prohibits them playing lottery. Lottery tickets are sold for cash only as credit cards are not acceptable by law.

Pick 3, Cash 5 and Pick 4, are the games included in Virginia Lottery. Each game has its draw twice a day. The lottery also has numerous scratch card games. Another popular game is Decades of Dollars that is played on weekly basis and its draw comes every Monday. Mega Millions is of course the most popular game of this lottery which has two draws weekly i.e. Fridays and Tuesdays.

Powerball is also equally famous as Mega Millions and can be played twice a week as it is drawn on Saturdays and Wednesdays. The integrity of games is protected through keeping up highly crafted security measures by state management. The winners of Virginia Lottery (that play and win Decades of Dollars, Mega Millions or Powerball games) are given a choice of annuity or cash.