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‘Lottery Fever’ Swells Mega Millions Jackpot to $1.1B, Powerball to $750M

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No Mega Millions ticket on Friday night matched the six drawn numbers. It marked the 30th consecutive drawing without a jackpot winner.

Mega Millions jackpot Powerball lottery
The Mega Millions jackpot for the lottery game’s next drawing on Tuesday, March 26, is an estimated $1.1 billion. The jackpot hasn’t been won since Dec. 8, 2023. (Image: AP)

For only the sixth time in Mega Millions’ 22-year history, the estimated annuitized jackpot for the game’s next drawing on Tuesday, March 26, is upwards of $1 billion. Lottery officials with the Mega Millions Consortium, which conducts the drawings at 11 pm ET on Tuesdays and Fridays at the WSB-TV studios in Atlanta, are forecasting Tuesday’s jackpot to be around $1.1 billion.

Lottery fever continues to spread throughout the country,” said Georgia Lottery President and CEO Gretchen Corbin, who is the lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium. The Georgia Lottery oversees each Mega Millions draw.

The $1.1 billion jackpot ranks fifth all-time among Mega Millions jackpots. The richest came last August when a player in Florida won a $1.602 billion jackpot.

Top Mega Millions Jackpots — Winner

  1. $1.602B — August 2023 — Florida
  2. $1.537B — October 2018 — South Carolina
  3. $1.348B — January 2023 — Maine
  4. $1.337B — July 2022 — Illinois
  5. $1.100B — March 2024 — ?

Lottery Drought

The Mega Millions jackpot hasn’t been hit since Dec. 8 when two tickets sold in California split a $395 million prize. Powerball players have been equally unlucky in winning the jackpot.   

The Powerball jackpot has been hit just once this year. The stroke of luck came early on in the year, as a player in Michigan won an $842.4 million prize during the Jan. 2 drawing.

Powerball is drawn three times a week and its jackpot has slightly better odds at one in 292.2 million. Hitting the Mega Millions top prize is one in 302.5 million.

Powerball will be drawn tonight at 10:59 pm ET from the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee. Saturday’s drawing will be the 35th drawing in the jackpot run.

At $750 million, tonight’s jackpot offering is the ninth-largest in the game’s 31-year history.

Top Powerball Jackpots — Winner(s)

  1. $2.04B — November 2022 — California
  2. $1.765B — October 2023 — California
  3. $1.586B — January 2016 — California, Florida, Tennessee
  4. $1.08B — July 2023 — California
  5. $842.4M — January 2024 — Michigan
  6. $768.4M — March 2019 — Wisconsin
  7. $758.7M — August 2017 — Massachusetts
  8. $754.6M — February 2023 — Washington
  9. $750M — March 2024 — ?

Play Responsibly

Lottery officials say massive jackpots increase interest and media coverage, which results in higher ticket sales and delivers richer benefits for participating lotteries. Mega Millions and Powerball reps, however, encourage the public to play responsibly.  

Large jackpots provide entertainment and winnings for our players nationwide while contributing to the beneficiary programs funded by each lottery. We appreciate our players and dedicated retailers, and we encourage everyone to play responsibly,” Corbin said.

Players should also be on the lookout for scams, as heightened jackpots bring out swindlers who use an array of deceitful tactics to gain personal information.

Mega Millions said earlier this month that lotteries never require a person to supply their banking account information before receiving their prize. Lotteries also do not reach out to winners via social media or send emails saying a winner must first pay taxes on their financial windfall before receiving the payout.

The post ‘Lottery Fever’ Swells Mega Millions Jackpot to $1.1B, Powerball to $750M appeared first on Casino.org.

Rephrased by The Mystic Gambler

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Powerball Jackpot to Hit $750M, Mega Millions Soars to Nearly $1bn

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Surviving since the start of the year, the jackpot from America’s popular lottery game, Powerball, is now getting closer to a mind-blowing $800 million. The grand prize for the upcoming drawing of the lottery game is estimated at $750 million, a figure that makes the jackpot the ninth largest in the history of the game.

The Powerball jackpot was able to grow this much after surviving for nearly three months. The last time a lucky lottery player hit the Powerball jackpot was at the beginning of this year. Considering the estimated $750 million grand prize, the cash option for the jackpot is a hefty $357.3 million.

The $842.4 million jackpot which dropped on January 1, 2024, was the fifth-largest prize from Powerball. The fourth largest jackpot dropped last summer in July when a lucky player from California hit $1.08 billion.

The third-largest grand prize was won in January 2016, a whopping $1.59 billion, while the second-biggest jackpot dropped on October 11, 2023, in California when a lucky lottery player guessed all winning numbers, securing $1.77 billion. Despite the aforementioned hefty wins, nothing can quite be compared to the largest jackpot from the game, a staggering $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot won in November 2022.

The winning numbers from Powerball’s Wednesday drawing included white balls 13, 22, 27, 54, 66 and red Powerball 9. While nobody won the jackpot, there was also no one who collected a million-dollar second-tier prize, at least from the latest drawing.

On the bright side, 27 lottery players guessed correctly four white balls along with the red Powerball, securing a $50,000 prize each, while six collected a $100,000 Power Play prize each.

The next drawing for Powerball is scheduled for Saturday, March 23, 2024.

The Grand Prize from Mega Millions Gets Closer to $1bn

Similar to Powerball, the jackpot from Mega Millions continues to increase as well. Surviving the drawing on Tuesday, the grand prize is not getting closer to a mind-blowing $1 billion. According to Mega Millions, the estimated jackpot for the game’s upcoming drawing is $977 million. While this is a completely mind-blowing sum, the cash option is also a whopping $461.0 million.

Unlike Powerball, four lucky lottery players secured seven-figure prizes from Mega Millions’ latest drawing. The four lottery aficionados won a $1 million prize each for guessing correctly five white numbers drawn.

The next drawing for Mega Millions is scheduled for Friday, March 22, 2024, at 11 PM ET.

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Casino Technology Identifies Smart Video Poker Players, Throttling Possible

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STN Charms

Casino Technology

A video poker machine at a Stations casino. Technology could help gaming companies limit loss from highly skilled video poker players. (Image: STN Charms)

A recent study found that a small percentage of video poker gamblers, known as advantage players (APs) possess the ability to cut into casino profitability. [Read more…] about Casino Technology Identifies Smart Video Poker Players, Throttling Possible

Casino Crime Round Up: Oklahoma Casino Winner Robbed, Scared By Snake

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Remington Park Casino

The incident began when Jason McBrayer, 43, sat down next to a slot machine player at the casino. McBrayer then displayed a live snake.

Held the snake up and actually scared the person enough that they got up and left,” Master Sergeant/Public Information Officer Gary Knight at Oklahoma City Police Department told Oklahoma TV station KWTV this week.

[Read more…] about Casino Crime Round Up: Oklahoma Casino Winner Robbed, Scared By Snake

Cambodia Officials Urged to Hunt Down Key Scam Gang Figures

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At the start of the year, Cambodia announced it closed down more than 200 illegal gambling businesses. 

Recently, country officials have been urged to hunt down “key figures” who are protecting the industry dominated by Chinese scam gangs plaguing the coastal city of Sihanoukville, also referred to as “sin city.”

Flourishing Scam Industry  

The country’s ongoing crackdowns in “sin city” have proven that they are still powered by the scam industry, according to observers. 

This is despite the continuous efforts employed by the government to completely eradicate the Chinese crime gangs that have generated billions of dollars using cyber fraud.

At the start of March, officials made over 450 arrests regarding alleged illegal online gambling scams as well as “pig-butchering” scam businesses that were thriving behind the masks of legal casinos.

Similar operations have been observed in condominiums and commercial buildings turned into worker dormitories, offices, and different support sites that the criminal gangs used to run their cyber-fraud businesses.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes in Southeast Asia and the Pacific’s deputy representative, Benedikt Hofman, the high level of concern and efforts shown by local authorities did not suffice to eradicate the scam operations. 

According to Cambodia-based Chinese reporter, Huang Yan, police raids normally target small and obscure scam operations. 

Post-crackdown, city governor Kuoch Chamroeun made a Facebook appeal, asking for information that would help locate Zhong Huokun, a Chinese national who is suspected of owning one of the two raided locations on March 9-10.

According to the Chinese reporter, before the crackdown, “they always arrested the low-level staff members” while failing to catch general managers of the scam groups. 

This is why the governor’s appeal is “very interesting” as it is a first. 

Gambling Reform Did Not Bring Improvements

According to Ros Phirun, secretary general of the Commercial Gambling Management Committee of Cambodia, the higher fees and revenue for gaining gambling permits did not trigger the expected results when it comes to controlling the sector. 

In other words, as explained by a CyberScamMonitor representative, the extra attention given to their activities did not scare off scam businesses in the city. 

On the contrary, it would appear that the industry is deeply embedded in the country, given the evidence showing how “powerful elite actors” are taking advantage of it and guaranteeing its survival.

To tackle the problem the right way, “a comprehensive and sustained crackdown is needed” together with the right type of legal action against the “key figures” running orange protecting the sector. 

At the start of 2023, Cambodia announced it made 1,241 arrests in the first half of 2023 in illegal gambling cases.

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California’s Newest Billionaires: Powerball Jackpot Winners Collect $1.765B

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The winners of the $1.765 billion Powerball jackpot hit last October in California have come forward to claim the prize.

Powerball jackpot California Lottery winner
Theodorus Struyck came forward to claim the $1.765 billion Powerball jackpot hit in October 2023. The California resident says he is part of a group of winners who regularly purchase lottery tickets together. (Image: Facebook/Casino.org)

A Powerball ticket sold in Frazier Park, California, for the Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, drawing managed to match the five white numbers and the red Powerball. That allows them to claim the second-richest lottery prize in US history. The lucky play was purchased at the Midway Market in Kern County, a family-owned business for 30 years that was awarded a $1 million bonus commission for selling the winning ticket.

Frazier Park is a small mountain town about 50 miles north of Los Angeles.

California resident Theodorus Struyck, 65, came forward to collect the historic prize. California requires lottery winners to disclose their identity to secure public trust in the state-run operation. Forty-four states have a lottery, but only 11 allow winners to remain anonymous.

Struyck said he represented a group of winners who purchase Powerball tickets together, with an agreement to share in any winnings.

The California Lottery release did not specify how many others are involved in the group. It also did not disclose whether the group chose the one-time cash option of approximately $774.1 million or the full value of the annuity paid out over 30 years. Both amounts are before a federal tax rate of 37%. California doesn’t further tax lottery winnings.  

Hopes and Dreams

Struyck and his cohorts won the Powerball jackpot after the interstate lottery game went 35 draws without a single ticket matching the six drawn numbers. The odds of doing so are one in 292.2 million.

California Lottery officials say the run generated almost $120 million in funding for public schools, which is where the state allocates its lottery revenue. The cashing in of the jackpot ticket, the lottery release added, provides “hope” for the millions of lottery players across the country that they could be next.

Announcing big wins like this gives all of our players the chance to hope and dream that they could be next,” said California Lottery Director Harjinder K. Shergill Chima. “But it also gives us an opportunity to shine the spotlight on our terrific mission, which is to generate additional, supplemental funding for public education in California.”

Chima said that while most Powerball players will never win the jackpot, California students win every day because of the lottery.

As for Struyck, his neighbors say the win “couldn’t have happened to a better guy.” Struyck has for years lived in a small home measuring less than 1,200 square feet.

“He’s a family man, loves to spend time with his grandkids,” neighbor Kevin Woten told the Daily Mail. “He’s a really kind person and always seems happy. I imagine he’s got a lot of ideas of what he wants to do with the money.”

Struyck is originally from Hawaii. Woten said he talked in length with Struyck after the devastating Maui wildfires but doesn’t remember Struyck saying he has family there.

Jackpots Growing

The next major lottery winner in the US is imminent, as the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots are growing to nearly unprecedented highs.

Monday night’s Powerball jackpot has an estimated value of $645 million, with the cash option at $307.3 million. Mega Millions has climbed to $875 million, with the cash at $413.5 million, for the game’s drawing on Tuesday night.

The post California’s Newest Billionaires: Powerball Jackpot Winners Collect $1.765B appeared first on Casino.org.

Rephrased by The Mystic Gambler

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