How to Play Multi-State Lottery Games

How to Play Multi-State Lottery Games

Powerball or MegaMillions and other cross-state lotteries.

In the 4th quick and dirty guide to Lottery games, we focus on what most people think of when they hear the word "lotto" and that would be the big doozey's, less commonly known by their proper name of Multi-State Games. To the average player, these are just huge lottery games, there is really no need to know the details of how it works as long as the jackpot is large. Yet, a lot of work and money actually goes into these puppies and if you're trying to cash in on the latest Powerball or MegaMillions, you ought to know a bit about how they work and the odds stacked against you, right? 

Multi-State Lottery Games

These types of games are exactly what the name implies - lotteries that join multiple states together in order to form a large jackpot. The larger the numbers of states involved, the larger the jackpot is. Currently there are 5 multi-state lottery games in place in the United States, yet there is always opportunity for growth. 

An example of this game would be the Mega Millions which includes 38 of the 50 states in the United States. Another example is the Powerball, which is offered by the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL - insert my review here). This game is played across 41 States, Washington D.C. and the US Virgin Islands

As these games pool a very large amount of people playing at any given time, the odds are much lower in your chance of winning. Think about this one, if you take the population of say Texas at 17,612,730 people and combine that with Pennsylvania who has about 9,709,658 people over the age of 18 and that is a possible 27,322,388 people playing the Powerball or similar game! Not obviously, not every single person over the age of 18 is playing one of these games, but you get the idea - add up all those numbers of possible players by 30 or more states and you have a heck of a odd stacked again you! 

However, most people are willing to take these odds in stride because with the larger amount of people playing, it means there is that much larger of a jackpot to win. Let's be honest here, paying $5 or so a ticket in the off-chance you can win over a million dollars, heck - I'd take my chances too. 

As far as how to play these games? The same follows as all the other games go. You pick a set amount of numbers per game you're playing, mark it on a pay slip, submit the pay slip for a game ticket in return and then sit back and pray that today is your lucky day. 

See also
