Lottery In California

California residents have been able to gamble on Lottery games since October 1985 when the state launched its first ‘scratcher ticket’ that would bring in $1 billion in sales in just four months. These days you can also play various multi-state lottery games and win huge prizes with the local draws due to the large population of the golden state.

Legal Lottery Options in California

You can play the lottery at over 21,300 locations across the state. Games available include multi-state draws and scratchcards, however at this time the only way to play the lottery in California is at physical locations, online play of any kind is not yet possible. That being said, there are second chance prize draws that you can enter, with weekly winners getting up to $15,000 for entering non-winning ticket numbers on the official lottery website.

Below we take a look at all the draw games you can play from California.

California Multi-State Games

This is where the huge payouts are ready and waiting for you, with games from the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) offered in California you can win tens of millions and sometimes even billions of dollars with these huge prize pools.

US Powerball

Starting its life in 1988 under the previous name of Lotto America, the Powerball branding would be formed in 1992, with California beginning to offer this game in April 1993. These days this is one of the biggest lottery games available anywhere in the world, with a jackpot that regularly gets into the hundreds of millions.

Tickets are on sale across the state for $2, and draws are held every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday night. There’s also the addition of the Power Play option, where you can add a multiplier to any non-jackpot winnings for each dollar you add to your ticket, so if you’re feeling lucky you can up the ante.

Mega Millions

This multi-state game started its life in 1996 and was originally known as the Big Game. Now rivaling the Powerball as one of the largest games in the United States, Mega Millions paid out the biggest single lottery win in October 2018 when a South Carolina player won a massive $1.537 billion jackpot.

Just like the Powerball, tickets cost $2 and there’s also a non-jackpot winning multiplier you can add to your ticket at the same additional costs known as the Megaplier. Draws are held every Tuesday and Friday night.

California Exclusive Lottery Games

Being the most populous state in the country with around 38 million residents, which is more than the whole of Canada or Poland for that matter. So as you might expect the in-state games have some massive prize pools too.

Super Lotto Plus

This game offers a jackpot that starts at a cool $7 million and regularly gets well into the double figures and with a 1 in 41,416,353 chance of winning the jackpot, those are much better odds than the multi-state games. Draws are held every Wednesday and Saturday and tickets cost just $1.

Fantasy 5

This five-number game offers the chance to win life-changing money every day with tickets on sale for just $1. You have an amazing shot at winning with this game, with odds of taking the jackpot home being 1 in 575,757 and estimated top prizes in the region of $70,000 and above.

Daily 3 & Daily 4

These lucky number games offer some great odds to win, with the jackpot for the three-ball game paying out 1 in 1,000 times and the larger prize pool of the Daily 4 game paying out 1 in 10,000 times. Tickets are on sale for just $1 and draws are twice a day for each game.

Daily Derby

This is a virtual horse racing game that offers a progressive jackpot for anyone that can select the top three placed horses and the correct race length. Draws are every day and you can win hundreds of thousands for just $2.

Hot Spot

This is the most regular lottery game in California, with draws held every 4 minutes until late into the night. Choose how many numbers you want to go for, with anywhere from 1-10 spots available and a bulls-eye number. The more balls you try to predict the higher your potential winnings, with 10 spots and a bulls-eye predicted netting you $300,000.

Additional Games

On top of all these fun multi-state and in-state draw games that are available in California, you can also play plenty of instant win scratchers. These games that can see you win up to $5,000,000 come in a variety of gaming themes, there’s crosswords, poker, bingo, tic-tac-toe, match 3, key number match games, and more.

California State Lottery History

• November 1984 – A statewide ballot was held with 58% voting to legalize the lottery in the state. The constitution would be amended and The California State Lottery Act of 1984 would be written into law.
• October 1985 – Ticket sales in California begin on October 3rd, with an instant win game called California Jackpot. In just 24 hours over 21 million tickers were sold.
• October 1986 – The state’s first draw game launches on October 14.
• March 1990 – The first daily draw games are introduced to California.
• April 2010 – The state allows a change to the Lottery Act which gives the lottery the power to amend prize payouts, this, in turn, makes for a drastic increase in sales.
• April 2013 – California introduces the Powerball game for the first time.
• October 2021 – One lucky California resident wins a record-breaking Powerball jackpot of $699.8 million.

What Does the California State Lottery Fund?

The California Lottery is focused solely on providing funding to California public schools, with the vast majority of revenues going to K-12th grade, but also helping to fund community colleges, the California State Univesity System, and other educational entities.

Since beginning its mission to improve the school system in 1985, the golden state has managed to raise over $37 billion for this cause and shows no sign of slowing down.

Where Can You Play the Lottery in California?

There are more than 21,000 retail locations across the state of California where you can play lottery games and purchase scratchers. Whilst you can’t use the lottery website or apps to play the lottery games currently, you can use them to enter 2nd chance prize draws and to check if your tickets are winners, so make sure to sign up online.

Ciaran McEneaney

Ciaran has been working within the Gambling Industry as a deep analyst since 2019. His deep knowledge and understanding of all the gambling regulations, and processes makes him a true asset, and an always valuable point of view for Gambling Industry News, allowing us to cover every topics from a brand new perspective.