First day of Powerball and Mega Million ticket sales in Mississippi
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Mississippi (WALA) — It’s official! People throughout the state of Mississippi can now try their luck at the Powerball and Mega Millions.
Retailers in Pascagoula, Mississippi were busy as dozens of people stopped to grab a ticket or two.
“You can just do a quick pick and all it is, is it prints out a tickets with numbers already on it,” the service station clerk explained. “Or you can get one of the cards and fill out the numbers you want and it prints out the numbers your selected and you just wait for the drawing.”
In 2018, state lawmakers authorized lottery sales to raise money, primarily for infrastructure.
“We need it. The roads are bad, some of the schools need upgrades so this should be a drastic asset to Jackson County,” Dwight Peters said.
Mississippi retailers first began selling scratch-off tickets in November of 2019. Now lotto players are trying their hand for bigger earnings after more than two and a half million dollars worth of scratch offs were sold in just the first day.
“I’ve been doing pretty good at the scratch offs so I’m hoping I do pretty good on this, too,” Callie Marshall said.
The chance to play even bigger has people excited.
“They wanted it. They were going to Louisiana to get the tickers, and Florida, so yeah they’re going to make a lot of money here,” Peters said.
“I think it’s a great thing because we don’t have to travel distances to try to buy tickets and it’s also bringing money into our school district so I think it’s great,” Tracey Davidson said.
“I think it’s wonderful and hoping they put some in health care eventually. That would be wonderful.”
The state expects to raise 25 million dollars through June, and about 75 million dollars for the first full fiscal year.
Winning numbers for the Mega Million will be Friday, January 31.
As for the Powerball, numbers are drawn twice a week: Wednesday and Saturday.
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