State’s New Lotto Game: $50-Million Jackpot Is Possible

The California Lottery Commission adopted a set of rules for its upcoming lotto games Wednesday that should lead to the largest lottery jackpots in U.S. history.

“There’s the potential for jackpots of $50 million,” said Mark Michalko, director of the California Lottery. “It won’t be routine, but with rollovers, it should happen.”

Unlike the instant games currently offered by the California Lottery, the lotto games scheduled to start about Labor Day will offer payoffs determined by the number of people who play and the length of time since the last jackpot.

The current record for a state lottery payoff is $41 million, won last year in New York, but California could surpass that, officials said. The fact that California has a larger population than New York will work in favor of larger jackpots, as will the fact that the odds against winning will be greater in California.

Must Select Six Winning Numbers

Lotto players here will buy their $1 ticket from a retail outlet linked by computer to lottery headquarters and be asked to pick six numbers from a field of 49, a larger field than is used by New York or any other state. The computer then will issue a ticket with those numbers.

Winning numbers will be announced weekly on Saturday nights. The grand prize will be equal to 40% of half of the total tickets sold that week. Thus, if 100 million tickets were sold, the grand prize would be $20 million.

When no one picks all six winning numbers in a weekly game, the top prize will be “rolled over” to the next week, a procedure that quickly will drive the prize total into the tens of millions of dollars.

In contrast, the largest amount ever won in the scratch-off lottery game that went into operation in California last October is $6.3 million, although players in Saturday’s “Big Spin” will have a shot at $10.28 million or more.

GTECH Corp. of Providence, R.I., won the $121-million contract to provide and service the 5,000 or more computer terminals for the game. The firm already has begun delivering the terminals.

Turning to other matters Wednesday, the board overrode the strenuous objections of state Sen. Ralph C. Dills (D-Gardena) and agreed to extend for six months its current contract with Scientific Games Inc. to provide tickets for the continuing instant games.

Open Bidding

“We want open bidding,” Dills said. “I am tired of having it said that this Lottery Commission is locked into just one bidder. . . . You don’t have to accept other bidders, but at least give them a chance.” Dills reminded the commission that legislators have expressed concern about the dealings with Scientific Games, which was behind the initiative adopted by voters in 1984 that created the lottery and was deemed the only bidder qualified to provide tickets for the initial instant games contract.

The commission, however, agreed with Michalko, who argued that the contract with Scientific Games should be extended because its current contract is “fair and reasonable,” that a new contract with another bidder would “create serious operational problems” for the lottery staff, and that “concessions” worth more than $2 million were offered by the firm for renewal of the contract. Staff members estimated that the contract extension is worth about $16 million to the firm.