With multistate lottery games like Powerball and Mega Millions offering jackpots in excess of $100 million every other month, the Illinois Lottery has revamped one of its original games, Lotto , in order to give lottery players a chance at potentially bigger jackpots and better overall odds.
Starting Sunday, Lotto will cost $1 for each game, instead of $1 for two sets of numbers. And the drawings will now take place on Monday, Thursday and Saturday evenings; the Wednesday drawing now moves to Thursday. Additionally, Lotto's prize table will award new prizes and larger average prizes per category and will offer an additional match-2 prize level.
In October 2012, the popular Extra Shot feature, which offers players six more ways to win for $1 more, was introduced and remains an optional purchase on every Lotto ticket.
The rules of Lotto will not change. Players still choose six numbers from 1-52. The drawings will continue to take place at 9:22 p.m. CT.
The Illinois Lottery says overall odds of winning a Lotto prize are now 1-in-7.36 for base Lotto (compared with the previous 1-in-32) and 1-in-5.68 (previously 1-in-9) for Lotto with Extra Shot.
Lotto was introduced in February 1983. After 3,008 drawings and more than $9 billion in sales, Lotto has created more Lottery millionaires than all other Illinois Lottery games combined.
