SACRAMENTO — A favorite money-raiser of churches and school clubs, the raffle goes big time next month when the California Lottery launches a game with million-dollar prizes.
Modeled after a raffle held by the Pennsylvania Lottery in 2005 and copied by 10 other states since, the California Lottery raffle is expected to generate $7 million to $8 million for public schools in a 40-day spurt of ticket-buying.
Tickets go on sale Feb. 5 and will be available until 6 p.m. on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. An hour later, the lottery will choose up to 10 $1-million winners, depending upon a formula based on how many tickets have been sold.
It's the latest gamble by lottery officials in their never-ending quest to energize players and boost payments to schools, which get 34% of the revenue. Last year, the lottery generated $3.58 billion in sales and gave $1.26 billion to schools, the highest in its 22-year history. By law, the lottery can spend no more than 16% on administrative costs.
"This is the latest idea," said I. Nelson Rose, a Whittier Law School professor and expert on gambling. State lotteries are hamstrung, he said, because although they are a retail business, they are also government agencies, and they typically plow only 50% of sales back into prizes, much less than private gambling operations.
"In Nevada, even the worst slot machine has to give 85% back," said Rose, "and because of competition there's probably no slot machine that gives back less than 90%."
Lottery officials expect the raffle to attract people who don't typically play lottery games. They figure most people are familiar with the concept of a raffle -- buy a ticket, get a number, win a prize if your number gets drawn -- from ubiquitous local fundraisers.
"There's not a lot of rules you have to figure out," said acting Lottery Director Joan M. Borucki. "It's ... probably the best odds of any game we've offered at the lottery."
Lottery officials hope to sell 5 million raffle tickets, each with a seven-digit number from 0000001 to 5000000. The numbers will be issued in sequence by a central computer -- players can't pick numbers -- and cost $5 each or five for $20. There is no limit to how many tickets a person can buy.If all 5 million tickets are sold, 10 $1-million prizes will be awarded, and the odds of winning a million dollars in the raffle will be 1 in 500,000. That compares with the 1-in-175,711,536 odds of winning Friday's $43-million Mega Millions jackpot or the 1-in-600,000 odds of winning $100,000 with a $5 "Lucky Times 20" Scratchers ticket.
