Florida Lottery

The Florida Lottery received its license to sell lottery tickets way back in 1986, but it wasn’t until two years later that the first-ever Florida lottery tickets became available for sale. Back then, it was a $1 Scratch-Off called Millionaire.

Players who are above 18 years old can join all the lotteries in the state of Florida. Draws are held at Universal Studios, Orlando. Currently, the Florida Powerball is the most popular, and it has the largest jackpot, which often amounts to over $100 million. Other well-known games in Florida include the Florida Lotto and Lucky Money.

Since 1988, over $21 billion has been given to charitable causes by the Florida state lottery and majority of the proceeds has gone to education. Players have often won millions of dollars, and the Florida Lottery has paid out ten jackpots amounting to $10 million.

The Florida Lottery also offers other games such as Pick 2, Pick 3, Pick 4, Pick 5, and Fantasy 5, which are all drawn every day. Most residents in the state participate in the state lottery and tickets worth $4 billion are being sold each year.

How to play

Every lotto ticket has ten panels marked as “A” to “J”. Players can select six numbers from 1 to 53. They can choose to mark the Quick Pick box to let the terminal select their numbers at random.

Players must purchase tickets through a retailer or online before 10:40 P.M. to join the day’s draw. Tickets bought after that time will be included in the next draw. Florida lotto draws happen every Wednesday and Saturday at around 11:15 P.M. EST.

The state lottery’s partnership with The Lotter allows players to buy lotto tickets over the internet. The partner buys the player’s ticket in-store on his or her behalf, enabling them to play the lottery online. There are over 13,000 authorised lottery retailers in the state of Florida.

Also, players can buy Advance Play tickets days, weeks or even months in advance for Florida Lotto, Lucky Money, Fantasy 5, Pick 2, Pick 3, Pick 4, Pick 5, Powerball, and Mega Millions. If a player claims a prize on a winning Advance Play ticket before all of the draws on the ticket have happened, he or she will be assigned a return ticket for the remaining draws with the same play as the original ticket. Keep in mind that you must claim all prizes within 180 days of the applicable draw date.

You may wonder what happens to prizes that are not claimed. The Florida law requires that 80 percent of the unclaimed prize from expired tickets must be sent to the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund. Then, the 20 percent that is left goes back to the prize pool from which future prizes will be given or are used for special promotions.

How to win

The FL Lottery randomly draws 6 out of 53 numbers. If you are lucky enough to match those six winning numbers for the date played, then you win the jackpot prize. On the other hand, you can also win other cash prizes by matching three, four or five of the winning numbers. The cash prize for three number matches is $5, for four matches $70, and for five matches $5,000.

The XTRA Feature

Players can multiply their non-jackpot cash winnings by two, three, four or five times through the Florida Lotto’s special XTRA feature. To use this XTRA feature, just choose the XTRA option on the lotto ticket or tell your retailer that you want to purchase a lotto ticket that includes the XTRA feature. The use of this extra feature will cost you an additional $1 for each play.

Before each draw, the XTRA multiplier number will be randomly chosen from numbers 2 to 5. If a player buys a ticket that includes the XTRA feature and matches three, four, or five of the winning numbers, he or she can win the cash amount that is equal to the original prize multiplied by the XTRA multiplier number. So, for example, if you match five numbers, you get $5,000, Then, the XTRA Multiplier drawn is four. So multiply $5,000 by four, and you get $20,000. The odds of winning the jackpot prize are 1 in over 22 million while the chances of matching three numbers are 1 in 70.

How to claim prizes

It is important that as soon as buy your ticket, you should sign it at the back to help prevent someone else from claiming your prize if it gets lost or stolen. All draw game prizes can be claimed at an authorised lottery retailer or a Florida Lottery district office on or before the 60th day after the official end of the game.