Lottery In Florida

The lottery in the state of Florida was first legalized with a constitutional amendment made back in 1986, with the first tickets being sold in January of 1988. The first game was a $1 scratch-off that brought in over $95 million in sales, a lot has changed since those early days and since joining up with the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) you can play all the most popular games with the biggest possible prizes.

Legal Lottery Options in Florida

You can purchase tickets from over 13,000 retailers within the state of Florida, however, online sales are not currently allowed. If you would like to find your nearest lottery game retailer take a look at the Where To Play page of the official Florida Lottery website.

There are plenty of different games sold across the Sunshine State lines, you can purchase plenty of draw tickets and get your hands on some instant win games.

Florida Multi-State Games

Florida has offered the option to buy multi-state tickets since as early as 2009 when the state began to sell Powerball tickets. These days there are plenty of these huge prize pool games available.

US Powerball

One of the American great games, the US Powerball has offered up some insanely large wins over the years and it shows no sign of slowing down, with sales for this massive game constantly increasing. The jackpots start at $20 million, but often pay out hundreds of millions, with some prize pools reaching record highs that include billion-dollar figures.

Tickets are sold for $2 across Florida, with the option to play PowerPlay for an extra $1 premium, this additional feature to the regular ticket offers you increased returns on any non-jackpot wins by applying a multiplier. Draws are held on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday night, so there’s plenty of draws to look forward to.

Mega Millions

Florida first added the Mega Millions game to its roster of draw games back in 2013, since then this similarly massive game has proved to be one of the best-selling tickets within the state. It’s no wonder because after all Mega Millions has had the best advertisement a lottery game could ever get, when it produced the largest single winner back in October 2018, shelling out $1.537 to a single player from South Carolina.

Tickets are sold at $2 apiece, with the option to add the Megaplier which can increase your non-jackpot winnings for an extra dollar. Drawings are held every Tuesday and Friday, which slot right in neatly with the Powerball’s off days.

Cash4Life

This game offers you the chance to get a payday, every day, for life in this the latest game from the MUSL that was brought to Floridians in 2017. Tickets are on sale for $2 and drawings are held every evening, with the jackpot providing you with $1,000 a day for the rest of your life.

Florida Exclusive Lottery Games

Being the third most populous state in the whole country with a little over 21 million residents, as you might expect the peninsular of Florida has some seriously large draws of its own to offer.

Florida Lotto

The game that has a motto of “A Whole New Way” offers you the chance to win millions of dollars twice a week, with draws held on Wednesday and Saturday. You can purchase your tickets for $2, with the option to increase your winnings with a multiplier known as Double Play for an extra dollar. You can also add the EZ Match instant win game where you can win up to $500 on the spot to your Florida Lotto ticket.

Jackpot Triple Pay

This is the game that gives you three chances of winning for just $1, with the option to add the combo feature for an extra $1. Drawings are held late on Tuesday and Friday and you can win anywhere from $250,000 up to $2 million if you are lucky enough to hit the jackpot.

Fantasy 5

This game gives you some favorable odds, in fact, you have a 1 in 376,992 chance of winning a jackpot of $200,000 with Fantasy 5 as well as overall odds of a return from your ticket of 1 in 7.58. Tickets cost just $1 and you can boost your potential winnings by playing EZ Match, the instant cash game where you can win up to $500 for an extra dollar.

Pick 2, Pick 3, Pick 4 & Pick 5

These lucky number games let you choose how many numbers you want to go for and with tickets starting at just $0.50 you could win a top prize of anywhere up to $50,000 on the Pick 5 game. Drawings are held twice a day and with the Fireball option, you can increase your winning potential.

Additional Florida Games

Scratch-Offs
These popular instant win games are sold across the state from just $1 ranging up to $30 and allowing you to win up to $1,000,000 with the scratch of a coin.

Fast Play
These are instant win tickets that are printed off at lottery terminals and can see you win up to $50,000. There are currently three games offered, Cash Stash, 9s in a Line, and $50,000 Cash Doubler. Tickets are on sale for $1 up to $5 for the larger game and the games offer odds of return of anywhere from 1:2.94 – 1:4.05.

Florida Lottery History

• November 1986 – Voters pass the legalization of a lottery with a two-to-one margin, a constitutional amendment is then created.
• January 1988 – Florida launches sales of the “Millionaire” scratch-off ticket on January 12th, 1988, a few days ahead of schedule. The game would exceed $95 million in sales.
• April 1988 – The Lottery introduces Florida Lotto and Cash 3 in April 1988, the Lotto draw would go on to break records when the prize pool quickly grew to $52 million months later.
• January 2009 – Florida starts selling tickets for the US Powerball.
• May 2013 – Florida starts selling tickets for the Mega Millions.
• February 2017 – Florida starts selling tickets for the Cash4Life.

What Does the Florida Lottery Fund?

The Florida State Lottery was founded with the intent to maximize revenues for educational purposes. Since launching in 1988, the Sunshine State has definitely achieved its goal, contributing more than $40 billion to enhance the schooling system. There has been more than $1 billion raised each year for going on two decades now and nearly 900,000 students have attended college due to the Bright Futures Scholarship.

Where Can You Play the Lottery in Florida?

The lottery games are only available to participate in at retail locations across Florida, with currently no option to play online or via self-service terminals, which is a pretty old school approach given the advancements in plenty of other states throughout recent times.

We can see this all changing very soon though, with the recent legalization of online sports betting in the state of Florida, there are now plenty of reasons to use one of these game providers to enhance the lottery operation too.

Jose Del Pozo

Jose is an iGaming analyst with wide experience within the sector. He has been working as content writer on casino and betting websites for more than 10 years, contributing on websites like Pokerlistings, Casinobee, Betpack among others, sharing his insights and perspective for the future ofthe iGaming market.