Powerball Game Continues in Idaho Another Year

I have never won anything larger than $6 dollars on a Powerball or Mega Millions ticket but it still is fun to play occasionally and I was disappointed when I found out that it was going away from Idaho. Earlier this year Idaho lawmakers were working on pulling the plug on the multi-state lottery because other countries were joining the game. Local lawmakers are worried about what participating foreign countries will do with their earned lottery revenue. Originally Idahoans were not going to have access in the gem state to play starting in August, but not anymore.

According to Keith Ridler with Associated Press, The Idaho Lottery Director Jeff Anderson told the House State Affairs Committee that getting the other countries Australia and Britain ready to launch Powerball wont happen this year as expected so Idaho will continue to play for now.

“Powerball will remain available for Idahoans and others to participate in after Aug. 23,” Anderson told the committee. “That doesn’t mean that we won’t be back next year to try to address this because it’s my understanding that this (adding Australia and Britain) is inevitable. It’s just not happening in 2021.”

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The Lottery Association that runs Powerball now has 45 states that participate. Idaho has been involved since 1990 and is one of the first states to join. States earn massive sums of money as revenue from the state participating. It will be a large financial loss for the state once it does go away late next year. According to Idaho lottery officials Idaho sells about $28 million worth of tickets and half of the earnings or about $14 million dollars go to the schools - every year.

Over the years Idaho has had quite a few Powerball winners. Like the Meridian couple who just a couple of weeks ago won $100,000 from Powerball - read more about that here. The biggest Powerball winner of all time was in 2005 in Star for $220 million.