The Lotto Matrix: The Best Revenge, Family Tidings, And A Circuitous Small Fortune

Welcome to this week’s “Lotto Matrix,” a weekly Friday compilation of the lottery industry’s most significant, interesting, or absurd happenings.

First things first

How much is Friday’s Mega Million jackpot drawing worth? A healthy $77 million — with a cash option of $34.1 million — after no one won the jackpot Tuesday.

How much is Saturday’s Powerball jackpot drawing worth? A sizable $263 million with a cash value of $117.7 million. There have been 14 rollovers after Wednesday’s drawing since a winning ticket was sold in New York for the $256 million jackpot — $123.5 million cash value — on Dec. 7.

Constructively channeling road rage

Let’s say you’re driving down the highway and someone cuts you off. There are many ways to respond, some more socially acceptable than others. Or, you could be like an Anne Arundel County resident in Maryland, who fueled his anger into a $500,000 payday by playing a combination of the numbers of the license plate from the vehicle that cut him off.

The man stopped at Doc’s F&B Liquors in Glen Burnie and played 10 separate but identical $1 Pick 5 tickets with digits from the license plate of that impolite driver. Each ticket paid out $50,000, most certainly easing some of the aggravation of the day’s earlier events.

Now that’s a good nephew and sweet auntie

A little further down the road in Virginia, Miran Smith gifted his Aunt Geraldine a New Year’s Millionaire Raffle ticket for Christmas. Holiday tidings abounded to start 2025 as they discovered she was among the five grand prize winners who hit a $1 million jackpot.

The two opted to split the seven-figure prize.

Miran Smith purchased the ticket at a Sunoco in the town of Ashburn. Interestingly, a separate Sunoco in Herndon sold one of the other four grand prize tickets.

Time to reset the odometer

Daniel Bragg of Newton, Iowa, will be able to (finally) upgrade from his 2001 Chevy Suburban — with over 849,000 miles on it — after winning $150,000 in a scratch game from the Iowa Lottery. It seems completely unsurprising Bragg drove through a blizzard to purchase his “Money Gift” scratch-off at the Fareway Store on New Year’s Eve.

To put the mileage on Bragg’s Suburban in perspective, he could have driven all of Iowa’s 114,000-plus public road miles seven times and would have been almost halfway through an eighth trek. Those miles are also the equivalent of more than 2,700 one-way trips the width of the Hawkeye State.

‘Circling’ the Buckeye State

A scratch-off lottery player made the most of his travels around Circleville, Ohio, winning a combined $16,000 on three individual Billion tickets purchased at three different locations in the town of nearly 15,000.

A man identified as “Robert C.” purchased one $50 ticket at the Short Stop on 495 East Main Street, his second practically down the road from Short Stop at the Kroger located on Lancaster Pike, and the third at the Sunoco on U.S. 23 South.

Robert, though, did not win the top prize of the $50 Billion scratch-off, which is $1 million per year for 20 years. All three top prizes remain available, though Circleville residents may want to move quickly and beat Robert elsewhere around town.

Newsworthy nuggets

Jackpot.com makes it 8: Jackpot.com launched Tuesday in Arizona, giving people the ability in the Grand Canyon State to buy lottery tickets and scratch-offs through the online courier service. It is the eighth state where Jackpot.com is available.

What’s your age again?: The Texas Lottery has added ID scanning for self-service lottery machines at more than 19,000 retail locations to step up enforcement of age verification. The ID scanner reads the PDF417 barcode found on the back of most state-issued IDs to perform the verification, and no data is stored or collected.

Also in the Lone Star State: Saturday’s $66.75 million Lotto Texas jackpot would be the second-highest payout in the past decade and among the top 10 all-time according to the Houston Chronicle. It has been a whopping 85 drawings dating back to June 24 when a winner from Austin claimed a $29 million jackpot. The last payout this large dates back to April 2023, when a gambling entrepreneur from Malta combined with a London-based company called Colossus Bets to purchase nearly all of the 25.8 million potential lottery combinations to win the $95 million jackpot. After taking the one-time payout of $57.8 million, the net win was approximately $20 million.

Monopoly comes to the desert: The Arizona Lottery started offering Monopoly Multiplier tickets Tuesday, with six games ranging from $1 to $20 offering a top prize of up to $500,000. There are higher multipliers based on price point, with the $20 ticket offering a 100x multiplier for the half-million dollar top prize.

Until next week, dream big, check your numbers, and play responsibly!