CA Powerball Update

The CA Lottery seemed pretty eager to tell everyone about the upcoming launch of Powerball. They made their press release pretty soon after the announcement. If you want to see the press release, click here. But the basic jist of the story is that Powerball will become available in CA on April 8th of next year. The release also says that the prize pool will be pari-mutuel, like SuperLotto Plus and Mega Millions (in California).

I looked at the proposed rules, and there was no mention of PowerPlay; so I can safely say that it won't be available in CA. I thought that with the multiplier gone, and with all PowerPlay prizes the same for each draw; I figured that this could be adapted for pari-mutuel payouts. But the 5/5 prize would probably have a hard time keeping near the $2,000,000 prize all the other states get. In fact, I'd bet that if they had a pari-mutuel PowerPlay available, a 5/5 winner might only get an increase of around $50,000 (if there was a winner in the prior draw). That wouldn't go over too well. So while I thought there might be a possibility of PowerPlay being available in CA, I'm not surprised that they decided to pass on it.

This scheme does provide for a very interesting prospect for the 5/5 prize. It will roll over when there is no winner, like Mega Millions does in CA. Mega Millions has had a few 5/5 "mini-jackpots" worth over $1,000,000. And that's with no Megaplier, and no extra money wagered. However, there have been 5/5 winners that have won significantly less than the quarter-million offered in other states. So it's a double-edged sword, and this will also be the case with Powerball.

The 5/5 prize pool will probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of $500K with each draw, more if the main jackpot is big. So if someone is to win $1 million+ by matching 5/5, there will likely need to be a lack of 5/5 winners the previous draw. If there are 5/5 winners in consecutive draws, they will almost certainly win less than $1 million, probably much less. But there is an upside with the rollover rule. If there's a string of draws with no 5/5 winners, a 5/5 win will net a lot more than $1 million (to a single winner, of course). I wouldn't be surprised to see a 5/5 prize pool of $3,000,000 or more somewhere down the line. Will somebody actually win that much? Nobody knows, but I can say this is definately a fun wrinkle to CA's Powerball.

Powerball in California: What to expect. (Pre-Announcement Speculations)

12/2/12 Update: The proposed rules have been posted at the CA Lottery website. I will post an update explaining everything soon; but for now, just regard the following blog as a "what could have been?".

11/30/12 Update: This blog was written before the offical announcement from the CA Lottery. But as you can see, it turned out to be correct. But the rest is still speculation for now.

The following blog is mere speculation, except for one thing: Powerball is indeed coming to California sometime in 2013. CA Lottery documents and meeting minutes from the New Hampshire Lottery both say this. However, I can't promise that they will follow through, delays can always pop up. But odds are, this will be 2013's most anticipated game, save for maybe GTA V.

However, California's lottery law will likely create a version of Powerball different from what every other state has. The law essentially requires that all payouts for an online game be parimutuel. This basically means that prize amounts will vary from draw to draw.

This is the rule Mega Millions follows in California. This is a double edged sword for players. On one hand the second prize can rollover and create a mini-jackpot. Players have won $1 million plus for 5/5 without putting down any extra money. The downside, however, is that prizes can end up being quite smaller than what other states get. A Mega drawing in June saw a second prize of about $57K. A lot of money, but significantly less than the $250K they would've gotten somewhere else. And with prize amounts varying as much as this, Megaplier will probably never be offered in California.

So is this what Powerball going to look like in CA? A parimutuel scheme like this would be very interesting because of the large 5/5 prize Powerball has now, and the fact that California will probably offer PowerPlay. It could create some big 5/5 prizes (upwards of $4M with PowerPlay), but could also create some really low prizes (like $300K with PP). That's why I think another situation could take place. Powerball in CA could have a payout scheme similar to Hot Spot, where the prizes are capped at a set amount, and are only lowered if there isn't enough in the prize pool to pay out. So, CA could see semi-fixed prizes in Powerball, and not the varying amounts seen in Mega Millions or SuperLotto Plus. But again, this is just speculation.

And another, unrelated note; what will happen to SuperLotto Plus after this? Move drawings to Mondays and Thursdays? Maybe go back to the old 6/49 format from the 80s? Sales are going to down after this, for sure; so there will probably be changes at some point.