State lottery adds Mega Millions

RALEIGH -- North Carolinians soon will get twice as many chances to defy the odds and win the jaw-dropping jackpots that stir daydreams of shiny cars, massive homes and instant retirement.

And the state lottery will get more ways to make money.

North Carolina's lottery commission Monday voted to add Mega Millions to the state's menu of lottery games, which already includes Powerball. Both are multi-state lotteries whose jackpots periodically climb well above $100 million.

The additional game, which could be available in North Carolina by January, will give players four chances a week at the gigantic jackpots, two drawings for each game. The odds against hitting either jackpot are overwhelming - 1 in 195,249,054 for the Powerball, one in 175,711,536 for Mega Millions.

States that offer lotteries have typically featured one of the two multi-state jackpot games. But that is changing, as states such as Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia are also moving to offer both games. South Carolina's lottery commission is scheduled to vote next week on adding Mega Millions to its lineup.

The additions are seen as a first step toward a national lottery with more expensive tickets and bigger jackpots. Officials say such a game could start as early as next fall.

North Carolina lottery officials are betting that Mega Millions will boost revenue in a market constantly in need of new options to offer players. Lottery executive director Tom Shaheen, who is also president of the association of Powerball states, estimates an 18 percent to 25 percent increase, or $38 million to $52 million more, in total sales.

"In a bad economy like this, people are trying to look for every bit of luck they can find," said Dipak Desai, who runs the Ballantyne BP in Charlotte, one of the area's biggest Powerball sellers.

Lose here, gain there

Some Powerball players already ask when Mega Millions is coming, said Cathy Oreshack, a clerk at the BP near the east end of Spring Forest Road in Raleigh, one of the Triangle's top sellers.

"Both of them are going to have huge jackpots two days a week," Oreshack said, "and that's going to require more manpower in the store."

North Carolina likely will lose Powerball players who drive across the state line from Georgia and Virginia, which now offer only Mega Millions, but likely will gain a much larger market of Mega Millions players within North Carolina, Shaheen said.

Lottery officials in various states acknowledge that, with each new game, they get closer to the saturation point when games start competing against each other for the same dollars. But they say they are not there yet.

"The fact that we're reaching what some people consider close to a plateau, we have to be creative," said Paula Harper Bethea, South Carolina's lottery director.

Adding another jackpot game follows a year of negotiations between the associations representing the groups of states that sell each game.

"Everybody's always looking for ways to increase sales," Shaheen said, "because they have to increase returns to their beneficiaries."