Powerball, meet Mega Millions.
"They're gonna play more," said Bhavika Patel, a clerk at Town Stationary in Englewood, N.J. on the first day New Jersey and 9 other states offered both games for sale.
Powerball has been available in more states, but Mega Millions has had the bigger payouts thanks in part to counting both New York and California among its member states.
But now, in many states, gamblers can go to the same lottery outlet and take their choice of either game, likely going with the bigger 'jackpot of the moment' according to Steven Palmieri, Acting Executive Director of the New Jersey Lottery.
"Tens of millions of dollars," is the estimate Palmieri gave as to what this will mean to New Jersey's recession-strained budget for the final five months of the budget year. (Although he says lottery sales so far this year, without Powerball, were already up six per cent.)
New York likely will get more. And Connecticut, by signing up for Mega Millions, should also get a hefty boost to its budget.
"Twenty percent more," was the estimate Ken Patel gave when asked how much business was up the first morning of Powerball sales, at Burgundy's Variety Store in downtown Englewood.
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But the odds of winning those multi-million dollar payouts are slim. But with two big jackpots now in play, Englewood's Raymond Anderson could say "I think it doubles my chances of winning."
That's one way to look at it. Then there's another lottery regular, David Simpson, also of Englewood. Simpson has been playing and pretty much losing for years. When asked if he could afford it, Simpson replied "Not really." But he quickly added he would keep playing to "try to get some money. Everybody's trying to survive."
But with dedicated gamblers like Simpson, Anderson and others, state gaming officials say a kind of national lottery isn't far away, with some published reports predicting it could come by the Spring of next year. If and when it does, it likely will offer jackpots much higher than either Powerball or Mega Millions, where the top payout has been $390 million, two years ago.
