SACRAMENTO – It’s Raffle Season and the Million Dollar Raffle is in full swing! With over three million Raffle numbers sold, the California Lottery today announced two more $1 million prizes have been added to the Grand Prize drawing on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2007. That brings the total number of guaranteed $1 million Grand Prizes to seven! If all five million Raffle numbers are sold, ten $1 million Grand Prizes will be awarded.
But don’t wait until the last minute to buy your Raffle tickets if you want a shot at the best odds of winning a million bucks ever offered by a California Lottery game. There are a limited number of Raffle numbers still available and only for another two weeks! Plus, if you want the chance at winning up to three different times, you’d better hurry because the next Million Dollar Raffle Preliminary Draw for ten $10,000 winners is taking place tomorrow, Saturday, March 3rd.
If you’ve already got your Raffle numbers, don’t forget to hold onto them because you’re still eligible to win any of the next three draws, including the Grand Prize drawing for up to ten $1 million winners! If you haven’t checked your Raffle numbers yet to see if you might have already won $10,000 in the first two preliminary draws, visit: http://www.calottery.com/Games/Raffle.
Don’t worry if you’ve missed your chance to participate in the two preliminary draws already held because you’ve still got three more chances to win if you act fast. Players need to purchase their Raffle tickets before 6:00 p.m. tomorrow night to participate in the Million Dollar Raffle’s third preliminary draw for ten $10,000 winning numbers. The next two Saturdays, March 3 and March 10 will feature preliminary draws for ten Raffle numbers worth $10,000. These two preliminary draws will be followed by the St. Patrick’s Day Grand Prize drawing for up to ten $1 million winners on March 17, 2007.
The Million Dollar Raffle is played just like other “raffle” style games. There are a maximum of five million unique seven digit Raffle numbers available for sale at $5 per number. Numbers will be sold in sequence and when all five million are gone, they’re gone. A minimum of five Grand Prize winners of $1 million cash each will be drawn on St. Patrick’s Day. But, as sales grow, the number of $1 million Grand Prizes grows too! If all five million Raffle numbers are sold, ten $1 million Grand Prizes will be awarded. If all five million Raffle numbers are sold, the odds of winning a $1 million Grand Prize are 1 in 500,000. All prizes will be paid at cash value (no annuitized prizes) and must be claimed within 180 days of the draw in which the prize was won. Million Dollar Raffle tickets are available at 19,000 retail locations statewide. On draw days, tickets must be purchased before 6:00 p.m. to participate in that’s evening’s drawing.
Public education receives at least 34 cents of ever dollar players spent on Lottery products. The California Lottery contributed a record $1.28 billion to public education in 2005-06 out of historic sales of $3.58 billion, the sixth year in a row the Lottery has provided more than $1 billion in supplemental funding for education. Since its inception in 1985, the Lottery has contributed more than $18 billion to California schools.