Guide To Playing the Lottery in California
The California lottery has been providing Golden State residents and visitors a chance at a life altering payday since that state’s voters passed Proposition 37 in 1984. The California State Lottery Act authorized the creation of a lottery system, and the first tickets went on sale October 3, 1985.
Since then, legislation has been passed in the United States by the Department of Justice which allows for purchasing of California lottery tickets and other state-run and worldwide lottery tickets over the Internet as well as in land-based retail outlets. Created to help provide more money for schools in the state without creating new taxes, the California lottery in its many forms still returns a generous 87% of all lottery revenue to the public, at least 50% in the form of prize money.
California residents can also play various lottery games online now, adding to the California online gambling repertoire available to players.
The first California lottery games were scratch tickets, and the first weekly lotto offering in that state began in October of 1986. California was the 12th jurisdiction to offer the Mega Millions lottery contest which provides some of the largest jackpot paydays in the world, and inclusion in the equally rich Powerball Lotto is due to take place in 2012.
As in most other states in the US, California lottery ticket buyers must be at least 18 years of age, and the size of each prize offered depends on the total number of tickets sold as well as the number of winning tickets.
Is it Legal to Purchase California Lottery Tickets Online?
When the DOJ ruled in late 2011 that the Federal Wire Act only applies to sports betting, this opened the door for legally purchasing lottery tickets online. A number of legal and licensed online lottery agents have emerged to provide these types of services to you in a variety of formats, including single purchases and subscriptions to ensure you never miss a drawing.
The agents purchase your ticket or tickets for you, and then email you scanned copies of the tickets. Redemption of winning tickets is easy, and players can actually participate in lottery games from all over the world, including Europe and other states within the US. We’ve listed some reputable lottery agents at the bottom of this page that are high quality and secure options for purchasing lottery tickets online.
Current California Lottery Games
The current California lottery games being offered are the Daily 3, Daily 4, Daily Derby, Fantasy 5, Super Lotto Plus, Mega Millions, Hot Spot and Scratchers. With approximately a one in five chance to win, the scratch cards called Scratchers offer the best odds, but also the lowest prizes. Hotspot is a Keno style game that runs every 4 minutes, and the Daily 3 requires you draw three digits from 0 to 9, with play offered twice a day. The Daily 4 means picking four lucky digits 0 to 9, and is run once a day.
The Daily Derby California lottery contest is a mock up of horse racing which allows you to choose three horses and race times, and Fantasy 5 players choose five numbers from 1 through 39. Fantasy 5 jackpots begin at a guaranteed $50,000, with the contest played once a day. The Super Lotto Plus is a California-specific game that can be considered a smaller version of the multi jurisdictional Mega Millions. Drawn every Wednesday and Sunday, this California lottery offering guarantees a starting jackpot of $7 million, and requires players to draw five numbers from 1 to 47, and a Mega Number from 1 to 27.
Mega Millions is far away the largest and most popular game in the state, with a record $640 million jackpot prize awarded in March of 2012. California entered the Mega Millions consortium at the behest of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005, and California offers a unique bonus to Mega Millions lottery participants who purchase a ticket in that state.
Unique among the 44 multistate jurisdictions, California uses a pari-mutuel system to dictate the nine Mega Millions prize levels. This means that while the advertised second place Mega Millions prize is listed at $250,000, it is not uncommon to pay over $1 million to a California ticket purchaser for that second place winner.
The California lottery offers many options to would-be participants, delivers access in both brick-and-mortar and virtual worlds, and is just one of the many responsible wagering offerings present in the Golden State. Learn more at the official California Lottery website.
If you would like to learn more about gambling opportunities in the Golden State, then check our these additional guides:
- California Poker – a guide to finding online or offline poker gaming opportunities in California
- California Casinos – a guide to locating secure and reputable casinos both online and offline for California players