Conservatively Speaking
State Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) represents parts of four counties: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, and Walworth. Her Senate District 28 includes New Berlin, Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Muskego, Waterford, Big Bend and parts of Greenfield, East Troy, and Mukwonago. Senator Lazich has been in the Legislature for more than a decade. She considers herself a tireless crusader for lower taxes, reduced spending and smaller government.
Powerball calls them improvements
By Mary Lazich
Thursday, Aug 21 2008, 08:38 AM
I call them enticements.
Powerball is announcing big changes in its jackpot lottery game. Like a trailer for the next Hollywood box office smash, a lottery press release pulls out all the persuasive stops to lure more players. Powerball promises to “increase the size of the average jackpot,” and make the game “even more exciting,” because Powerball wants to “create lots of millionaires” and wants to “create more winners with better overall odds.”
Here is an example of the spin Powerball is using to attract even more gamblers. Ernie Passailaigue, the Powerball Group Chairman and the Executive Director of the South Carolina Lottery says, “The price of a Powerball ticket remains unchanged at $1. Even though our players know that the cost of everything else has gone up since Powerball sales commenced over 16 years ago, we didn’t want to raise Powerball’s price in our current economy.”
Isn’t that considerate of Powerball? The people who run the jackpot lottery are so thoughtful, they are going a step further by letting you make the decision to spend even more on your tickets because there will be the option to play for bigger prizes for $2 by using Power Play. “We wanted to give our players the power to choose and with many of our newer member lotteries, more than half of our players have chosen the benefits of the $2 Power Play option,” said Passailaigue.
Changes to the game effective January 2009 include increasing the starting jackpot from $15 million to $20 million, and increasing the average jackpot from an expected average of $95.5 million to $141 million. Powerball promises bigger jackpots that will increase faster. The regular second-highest prize will be $1 million, but players will have to buy the Power Play option for an extra $1 and hit all the numbers except for the Powerball.
Powerball is instituting changes because Florida will become the 33rd state to join Powerball in January.
Currently, the odds of winning Powerball are 1 in 146.1 million. After Florida joins Powerball, the odds increase to 1 in 195.2 million. The long odds are the only sure thing about Powerball. Your chances of winning Powerball are slim to begin with and will become even more difficult.
Jackpots will be bigger and there probably will be more millionaires as a result of the Powerball changes. But there will be a great deal more losers as Florida joins Powerball come January.
