New York Lotto

The oldest lottery game in the United States is also the most popular – it’s the New York Lotto game and it has been offered continuously since 1967 when the state legislature agreed to arrange for the game. Back then though, the game was held in raffle style with a months long lead up to the drawing while today, the New York Lotto game is played twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday.

Both Mega Millions and Powerball

The New York Lottery is also one of the few American lottery systems to offer both multi state lottery games, the Mega Millions and Powerball games, in addition to their own extremely popular homegrown lottery game. In addition to those, New York offers Take 5, Win 4, Quick Draw, Pick 10 and numerous scratch off lottery games, though the New York Lotto game remains their flagship game and one of their biggest draws.

Game Type

The New York Lotto game has changed a number of times over its history. As noted above, it was originally a raffle style lottery similar to that of the Spanish El Gordo lottery game; however it changed over to a traditional style lottery soon after, requiring that you pick 6 numbers out of 40 possible choices. That number has steadily expanded however and today, the New York Lotto game requires you to choose 6 numbers out of a total of 59 possible choices.

Secondary Number for Second Prize

There is also another addition to the New York Lotto game which was added fairly recently – a secondary “power ball” type number. This number isn’t used for winning the jackpot however. Instead, it’s used for winning the second prize (i.e. if you match 5 numbers and the secondary number, you win the second prize, whereas if you match all 6 numbers, you win the jackpot.)

How to Play

The New York State Lotto game was once available only to New York Residents and later only to American citizens. However, it has been open to anyone with “a dollar and a dream” as their slogan goes for quite some time. The only legal requirement for participants is that they must be at least 18 years of age on the day that they purchase their ticket for the game.

The odds of winning the New York Lotto jackpot are 1 in 45,050,000 and the odds of winning the second prize are 1 in 7,500,000. The third prize odds are much better, at 1 in 144,000 and the fourth prize odds are just 1 in 2,179. The record for the New Your Lotto jackpot was in 1997 when one lucky ticket holder walked away with $72,000,000.