Buying a Mega Millions ticket in WV? Join the crowd

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Lottery fever has reached the point that West Virginia officials anticipated selling $2,000 of tickets a minute by late afternoon today.

People were likely to get off work and then right into a line to buy a ticket for the $1.6 billion Mega Millions jackpot.

Or, they might go right ahead and buy another ticket for the $620 million Powerball jackpot.

“On a draw date, you usually get your highest sales in afternoon drive time when people are coming home from work,” said Randy Burnside, spokesman for West Virginia Lottery.

“So don’t wait until the last minute. There are lines at a lot of retailers.”

One of the people buying tickets at a GoMart in Charleston was John Monroe, a tour bus driver from Detroit.

He suggested the tourists on his bus were likely out getting tickets too.

“Got to,” Monroe said.

He did not yet have a plan for spending millions of winnings.

“Kind of hard to spend that,” Monroe said, “but we’ll see.”

An electronic kiosk at Charleston Town Center was doing brisk business Tuesday during the lunch hour.

One of those in the line was Debbie Land of Charleston.

“I’m hoping to win just like everybody else,” Land said.

Land used to be a more regular Lottery player. But when jackpots go high, she is more likely to play.

On Tuesday, she was buying tickets for MegaMillions, Powerball and, just for good measure, Lotto America.

“It’s like, I’m going to buy them; I might as well buy another one,” she said.

Page Hamrick, who was in the same line to buy tickets, said he plays about once a week.

“Usually there’s no one here,” Hamrick said as he waited.

He doesn’t normally play Mega Millions. “But, you know, might as well,” he said.

Odds of winning Mega Millions are about 1 in 303 million.

The probability of winning a Powerball jackpot is roughly 1 in 292 million.

The odds are the same no matter how many tickets are sold.

“If you don’t play, you can’t win,” Hamrick said, echoing a Lottery catch phrase. “When you think about it, there’s a 100 percent chance that someone is going to win. So it’s not like there’s no odds.”

Another player, Rachel Ludwig, had also assessed the odds.

Ludwig said she’s playing anyway, for the fun. She said she only plays when the jackpot grows big.

“I’m not going to win, but I hope I win,” said Ludwig, a Charleston resident.

Burnside, the spokesman from Lottery, said people don’t have to win the jackpot to be winners.

“There are great prizes throughout the prize structure of Mega Millions and Powerball that are outside the jackpot,” he said. “They’re not just jackpot games.

“If you match five numbers, you win a million dollars, for instance. So we’re encouraging everyone, please check your tickets.”





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