On Jan. 15, 2012, the multistate game will get a facelift, including a starting jackpot that doubles to $40 million, better odds of winning and a $1 million match-5 prize.

In order to provide these game enhancements, the cost of a ticket will increase to $2.

The decision to change the game was necessitated by a 96 percent increase in player population when 11 additional lotteries joined the game in Feb. 2010.

“With greater participation, fewer drawings occur before jackpots reach higher levels and these jackpots are getting hit faster,” explained Louisiana Lottery President Rose Hudson. “Player research indicates Powerball is played primarily for the opportunity to win a life-changing jackpot, so to sustain the game’s long-term success considering the different gaming options available to today’s players, the changes focus on what players have come to expect from the brand – bigger jackpots and more millionaires, while also giving them better odds of winning.”

Toward that end, Powerball’s starting jackpot will double from $20 million to $40 million with a minimum $10 million increase each time the jackpot rolls. In addition, the average jackpot size will increase from $144 million to $222 million. Odds of winning the jackpot will decrease from 1 in 195.2 million to 1 in 175.2 million.

The match-5 prize for matching all five white ball numbers, but missing the red Powerball number will increase from $200,000 to $1 million, and the prize for matching only the red Powerball number will increase from $3 to $4.

The overall odds of winning any prize will go from 1 in 35 to 1 in 32.

To produce these game enhancements, four numbers will be removed from the field of red Powerball numbers for a total of 35 and the cost of a ticket will increase to $2.

Power Play, the $1 add-on option to Powerball, will also change to no longer involve a multiplier number.

Instead, when players add Power Play to their ticket for an additional $1 per play, they will have the chance to increase any nonjackpot prize won to a set amount. These new Power Play replacement prizes are at least double the original Powerball prize amount, and range from $12 for matching just the Powerball to $2 million for matching all five white ball numbers.

“The Lottery has always prided itself on offering a product mix that promotes a variety of games with price points, play-styles, odds and top prizes to meet our players’ different preferences,” said Hudson. “By launching Mega Millions on Nov. 16 and with these enhancements coming to Powerball in January we’re giving our players even more choices for playing big jackpot games four times a week!”

With the world’s largest starting jackpot, Powerball is currently played in 44 jurisdictions across the nation. The Louisiana Lottery joined Powerball in 1995 and has had 14 jackpot winners to date. The last Powerball game change occurred in January 2009 when Florida joined the game.

More on this as we approach the New Year.

Above, is the portrait of a very happy man.

You would be too, if you laid out $20 for two “Triple Platinum 777″ scratch tickets, and won $100,000.

He never dreamed one of those would reveal a $100,000 top prize.

Lane Shaver, 56, happens to live near the Market of Madrid, Iowa, where he purchased his ticket. He said he makes regular runs to the store, so when he stopped in for apples for his grandsons one day, he decided to cash in a couple of tickets.

“The other $10 game I normally play was out, so I hit the Triple Platinum game,” Shaver said. “I scratched over and I saw the zero I expected and then I saw another zero and another; and then I realized that wasn’t a decimal point, it was a comma. And I knew I was on to something big.”

You betcha, dude.

Living close to the retailer, Shaver took the ticket back to the Market of Madrid to have it validated.

“She said, ‘You just saw me; what did you forget this time?’ And I said, ‘I forgot to have you check this ticket,’” Shaver said. “Her eyes just got big and she joked, ‘You know, I am going to college next year!’”

Shaver said his wife was home with his two grandchildren when he discovered his big win.

“The feeling in the household was disbelief,” he said. “It still hasn’t totally hit me. Yesterday there was no real concept other than this is a dream come true.”

Shaver said he plans to use some of his winnings to become debt-free, as well as savings and investments for retirement.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime deal, so I’m going to do it right,” he said.

Shaver said he feels grateful that everyone in the town of Madrid has told him the win happened to someone who deserves it.

We are lotterymoments are happy too.

I’m always thrilled when someone wins big money.

I can tell you this.

There were no Powerball or Mega Millions winners in Minnesota this past July 1 or 2.

Because the lottery has been shut down.

It’s the budget impasse, of course, that has closed down the state government. Period.

Many state services ceased operations Friday.

The Lottery closed all its offices 5 p.m. Thursday, and no lottery tickets were available for sale after 11:59 p.m.

During the shutdown, lottery tickets cannot be validated or paid out.

Ain’t that a bitch?

So if you have winning tickets, just hold on to them until this all blows over.

Starting Thursday evening, the Minnesota Lottery’s Web site displayed the following words:

DUE TO THE CURRENT GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, THE MINNESOTA STATE LOTTERY IS CLOSED AND THIS WEBSITE IS NOT BEING MAINTAINED.

No Lottery tickets may be sold or winning tickets redeemed until further notice.

Please sign any winning tickets and retain in a secure location.

We have tried to provide Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) about the shutdown and you may link to those questions here.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

If  I lived in Minnesota, I might not be so patient.

If you are reading this and live in Minnesota, let me know what you think.

I always say I don’t, and yet when I scratch, I like to scratch with my lucky Kennedy dollar.

Am I a hypocrite?

Hell yeah.

Look, obviously, there are no guarantees that when you use a lucky charm it will help you win. Right?  But who’s to say that a bit of silliness and good old fashion fun can’t be all it takes to succeed?

LUCK OF THE IRISH

Every talks about the luck of the Irish (my wife has Irish roots)…and the luck of a four leaf clover.  Legend has it that the first four leaf clover sprang up in the footprints of St. Patrick when the Emerald Isle’s patron saint first stepped on Irish soil in the 400s.

Because of its scarcity, finding a four-leaf clover is a sure sign of luck.

Managing not to lose it is an even better indication that you were born to be lucky.

So far be it from me to deny that a four-leaf clover isn’t lucky.

How does it relate to the Lottery?

How about rubbing on one before you play?

I’ll get to other good luck charms another time.

Do you have a favorite one? Let me know.

I was in the lottery business for more than 10 years. I still do work for a few of them, essentially, talking to winners.

I got sick and tired of the rip off artists putting out books telling you they have systems, and here is how YOU can win.

Balderdish.

Bullshit.

If there was a system out there that could assure a win, I’d know about it. Lotteries would know about it. And yet, they are making billions of dollars.

No, it’s all about luck.

Yes, you can increase your odds of winning, but that’s about it.

After that, it’s luck.

So instead I set out to entertain you. The book is filled with oddball anecdotes about lottery winners.

It includes a section for beginners.

It includes a history of the lottery (i.e. George Washington played the lottery; Benjamin Franklin printed tickets)

And I talk about scams. And review a history of lotteries in the movies and on TV.

My book is not one of those scam books… I just wanted to make it a happy, funny quick read.

I’ve been on radio and cable TV stations… promoting it (when it came out)…

I hope you enjoy it.

I will in the next few years update the stories and the games, because they change all the time.

If you buy it, I hope you’ll like it.

And that’s no bullshit.

The Italian SuperEnaLotto draws three times a week and I play it whenever I can, putting out a few euros once a week.

Tuesday’s draw produced no top winner so the Thursday jackpot rolls to about 64 million euros, translated to $89 million in U.S. dollars.

If you happen to be in Italy anytime soon and you love playing the big money games, this is the one to play.

CHRISTMAS GIFTS:

People have raved about my book (see photo to right), which…as unbiased as I am…would make a nice Christmas gift.

For those of you who think it might be one of those scam…here’s how to win the lottery books, it’s purposely not.

I have been involved in the lottery business for about 11 years now and met thousands of winners.

These are their stories…the funny, odd winners stories.

BUT there is also a cool history of the lottery (did you know George Washington played the lottery?)

Lottery in the movies.

How to form a lottery pool

and much much more.

Two Michigan men have claimed a total of $269 million in lottery jackpots — in the Mega Millions game and in the Powerball game.

Dontcha love it?

The big, ongoing mystery, of course, was who bought the winning lottery ticket in a porno shop?

The answer is…we still don’t know.

Herein lies a tale:  the man who brought in the winning ticket said he doesn’t play the lottery, didn’t buy the ticket and doesn’t know who did.

It was a pool of MYSTERY players, said Mike Greer, 49, a Farmington Hills photographer who agreed to be the public face of a group of family and friends who will share the $128.6-million jackpot.

They call themselves Team Victory.

He said he was asked by the team to represent them.

Well, maybe someone was ashamed that the ticket was bought in an “adult” book store.

Meanwhile, the Mega Millions jackpot winner ($141 million) is a bit more upfront. He is Stteve Mays, a retiree who lives outside Gladstone, Michigan in the western Upper Peninsula.

He said he wasn’t sure what he’d spend the winnings on yet, noting he already has a nice boat.

Mays said he checked the first number and I had it,” he said. “They just kept coming out.”

Mays said his wife was the first person he told. They have four children and six grandchildren, who can expect to share in his new wealth “eventually.”

Mays chose to receive his winnings in annual payouts, which is a big unusual these days.”He’ll receive $5.4 million a year, before taxes, for the next 26 years.

But the big mystery remains:

So, who bought the huge winning lottery ticket at an adult bookstore in Highland Park?

Greer acknowledged at a news conference he was being intentionally vague about the club, which he said has “more than two and less than 100″ members.

Greer said the Victory club members were a group of family and friends who are lifelong acquaintances.

“I’d be lying if I told you that we weren’t going to indulge ourselves,” he said, though he hadn’t settled on how to spend it.

Members of his group decided on a lump sum payment; they will split $69.6 million before taxes, said Abbey Brewer, a lottery spokeswoman.

The Michigan lottery is required by law to deduct 4.35 percent of the winnings for state income tax, and another 25 percent for federal taxes, she said.

Last week, the Illinois Lottery announced a new “Cash 4 College” scratch-off-ticket game. The prize: free college tuition.

Five winners will get full tuition, as well as any mandatory fees, for college.

Winners will get to choose from a number of schools nationwide. They’ll also have a $20,000 cash option if they don’t have someone who could benefit from the tuition deal.

The game costs $2 a ticket.

Hmm. Let’s see. Spend $2 and you could wind up winning free college tuition for your kid.

Wow.

Love it.

What do you think?

I’ve written two books on the lottery…one is shown on this page (still available). And I devote a few chapters on scams, etc.

If you surf the net, looking for interesting lottery sites, you’ll always find people hawking their systems.

Well, let me clue you in on something. I worked for the CA, MD, DC lotteries, among others, and if any number picking system worked, lotteries would be out of business. And they’re not. In fact, they’re making more money now, during this great recession, than ever.

So people selling systems (wheels are particularly popular and enticing because the basic theory of wheeling holds true) make their money selling systems, not winning the lottery.

Just keep that in mind because I ran across something recently that is pretty interesting.

An Orlando man is having a streak of incredible lottery luck.

Richard Lustig just cashed in on a winning Florida Lottery Fantasy 5 ticket worth nearly $100,000.

It’s the SEVENTH time he’s won a lottery grand prize and he told a local TV station in Orlando that he plans to keep on playing.

“You can win and I’ve proven it,” Lustig said.

Lustig said he had a special method to how he plays the lottery, but would not reveal his secret.

“I can’t just give it away. I have it printed out and I have been selling it to people.”

Uh oh. He wants to sell you his winning system? Let the buyer beware.

Lustig, who owns an entertainment company in Orlando, said he’s been perfecting his method of playing the lottery for years.

“My very first grand prize was just over 17 years ago, two weeks after my son was born,” he said.

We did do some fact checking with Florida. In 2008, Lustig hit the Fantasy 5 jackpot, winning more than $73,000. Six years earlier, he walked away with nearly $843,000 while playing Florida’s Mega Money.

Is he just lucky? Or does the sonofagun really have a system?

Lustig is writing a book about how he’s been able to win so many times, but now he says he will have to change the title.

“We had ’6- time lottery grand prize winner,’ and we just scratched it out because, as of this week, it’s now seven,” he said.

Lustig said he did buy lottery tickets every day, but would not say how many or what kind. He says he’s also won thousands of small prizes while playing the lottery.

Hmmm. Stay tuned.

From news sources, I have learned that gamblers will be able to buy lottery tickets in New Hampshire next week to play online — a move seen by some as an expansion of the kind of gambling that state lawmakers oppose.

But not me.

PlayNowNH interactive games go on sale July 1.

New Jersey tried something like this a few years ago, incidentally.

Here is how it works: players choose the game — baseball, super slots, speed bingo or New Hampshire poker — and the amount they want to play.

For example, players can buy chances for the $1 baseball game on one ticket or a separate ticket with chances for the $5 poker game.

They can buy tickets with total chances per game worth up to $100 and play on their home computers, using a 30-digit access code.

Since the prizes associated with the tickets are determined at sale, players also can check at lottery outlets to see if the tickets are winners — without playing the games.

Lottery Commissioner Paul Holloway described the games as similar to scratch tickets.

Winners must claim prizes in stores and cannot buy more chances online, he said.

Sounds good to me.

Let’s see how it works.