Pick-6 Lotto (NJ) finally gets an add-on.

For a while now, most NJ lottery games have offered an add-on feature; a chance to win more provided you pay an extra dollar. Pick 3, Pick 4, and the recently ruined Jersey Cash 5 all have Instant Match, while the two multi-state mega jackpot games have their respective multipliers. Now, New Jersey's original jackpot game, Pick-6 Lotto, has a multiplier too. It's very similar to the Xtra feature in Florida's Lotto; in fact, New Jersey's version is also called Xtra. Pay an extra dollar, and you can multiply non-jackpot prizes between 2 and 5 times; and also win $2 cash by matching 2 numbers (something you can't do in the $1 version of Pick-6, and you still can't do in Jersey Cash 5).

I'm not sure if I can recommend this, though. As of yet, there have been no indications about the odds of a particular multiplier coming up. Maybe once I see the drawing, I could find out. My guess is that there's an equal chance of any multiplier coming up, but there's no guarantee. Tennessee's ill-fated Lotto Plus had a multiplier heavily weighted towards the lowest factor, 2x. This created a situation where adding the extra dollar would actually raise the house edge, from 50% for the $1 base game, to about 58% (IIRC) once you added the Plus feature. Hopefully, New Jersey hasn't done this and has created an equitable multiplier scheme. Multipliers are good bets if they're done right.