Lottery In Michigan

Michigan has offered lottery games since 1972 in an attempt to raise money for school funding in the state. Since the lottery has been legalized, the state has raised more than $24.6 billion for the School Aid Fund. These days you can play various games both in stores and online, including pull tabs, instant win games, keno, and of course, plenty of in-state and multi-state draw games with huge jackpots.

Legal Lottery Options in Michigan

You can play the lottery in over 10,500 locations within the state of Michigan. If you want to find your nearest outlet that sells various tickets for in-state games, multi-state draws, and instant win games, just check out the find a retailer section of the Official Michigan Lottery website here.

Michigan also allows you to play a huge number of instant win games online, plus you can take part in draws like the Powerball, Mega Millions, Lucky For Life, and more with the use of their online subscription service. You can use this subscription to play just a single ticket if you like; just be sure to cancel the recurring purchase on your card.

Below, we look at all the draw games you can play from Michigan.

Online and Retail Games Offered in Michigan

These are the major games offered in Michigan that you can either play in-store or online via the official lottery website:

US Powerball

You can play the Powerball from Michigan with ease, grab a ticket in-store or subscribe online to play and be in with a chance to win tens of millions. The draws are three times a week, which means on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, you’ll be in with a chance of winning some life-changing cash.

Tickets start at $2, and you can also opt for the Powerplay feature, which comes at an additional cost but can multiply your non-jackpot winnings significantly.

Mega Millions

This is the other huge multi-state game that offers some of the biggest jackpots anywhere in the United States. The game is drawn every Tuesday and Friday and at the time of writing this, there is a huge $73 million jackpot to be won.

However, if you thought that is a huge amount to win, well, one lucky South Carolina player managed to win $1.537 billion on October 23rd, 2018, on the Mega Millions. This is the largest single lottery payout there has ever been.

Lucky For Life

This multi-state game gives you the chance to win a cool $1,000 a day for the rest of your life and even has a second prize that will see you pocket $25,000 a year for your entire life. Tickets are on sale state-wide for just $2, and if you win, you can even decide to take a lump sum settlement rather than waiting for those checks to land each week.

Lotto 47

This is an exclusive game for Michigan only that comes with a minimum jackpot of $1 million and also includes an instant win option for just $1. Draws are every Wednesday and Saturday evening, and you can participate in stores or online via the lottery website.

You have a much better chance of winning this kind of local draw, which makes it so popular. You will win the jackpot prize  1 out of every 10,737,573 times you play this game. But you’ll also have an overall 1 in 47 chance of winning a prize.

Fantasy 5

This is another Michigan-only lottery draw that is held every evening. You can purchase tickets online or in-store for just $1 and you’ll have a 1 in 9 chance of winning a cash prize and a 1 in 575,757 chance of winning the jackpot which is guaranteed to be $100,000 or more.

Retail Only Lottery Games in Michigan

Certain games are only offered in retail locations across the state of Michigan, and this is a rundown of which games aren’t available online just yet:

Keno

You can play Keno in Michigan for just $1 a ticket with the chance to win up to $2 million. Games are drawn every few minutes from 6 am to 1:59 am, seven days a week. You have different odds of winning depending on the Spot Game you choose; there’s a 1 in 3.86 chance of winning with the 4 Spot game, for instance, and an overall 1 in 9.05 chance of winning a prize in the ten spot version of the game.

Daily 3 & Daily 4

Like the Pick 3 & Pick 4 games in other states, these are lucky number games that offer good chances of return with relatively low top prizes. Tickets start at just $0.50, and the top prize in the Pick 4 game is $5,000.

Cash For Life

Much like its big brother Lucky For Life, this game offers you the chance to win $1,000 a day for the rest of your life. The difference with this game is that Cash For Life is an instant win scratch card version of the popular game. Tickets are on sale in retail locations for $2, and you’ll have a 1 in 4.66 chance of return.

Additional Games

There are plenty of other games that you can take part in, and you can purchase various pull-tab games from retail stores for just $0.50 and be in with a chance of winning up to $2 million. There are also fast cash games with progressive jackpots available in stores, as well as plenty of traditional instant scratch card games with massive prize pools offered.

When it comes to the online side of things in Michigan, you can play plenty of digital instant games, play keno instant games and even buy raffle tickets with a top prize of $100,000 in the $10 draw.

Michigan State Lottery History

• November 1972 – Public Act 239 is passed which allows Michigan to offer a state-run lottery in order to help fund money for schools.
• February 1973 – Hermus Millsaps is the first million-dollar prize winner.
• October 1975 – The first instant-game tickets are sold.
• August 1984 – The Michigan Lottery was introduced on August 13th.
• August 1996 – The first Big Game tickets were sold. The game is now known as Mega Millions.
• August 2012 – Donald Lawson wins a $337 million jackpot on the Powerball, making this the largest win in Michigan’s history.
• November 2014 – Michigan launches its online lottery website, selling Keno and scratch-off tickets.
• September 2016 – Online sales expand with the website offering subscriptions to draws like Powerball, Mega Millions, and Lotto 47. Lucky For Life would be added in 2020.

What Does the Michigan State Lottery Fund?

All profits from the sale of Michigan lottery tickets go towards the School Aid Fund. This has helped support the education of Michigan’s youth since 1972 and to date, they have contributed more than $24.6 billion.

The Michigan Lottery also helps out local businesses by offering them a commission and bonuses on tickets sold, so when players win so do the stores. In the last ten years over $2.2 billion has been paid out in sales commissions and bonuses.

Where Can You Play the Lottery in Michigan?

Michigan is one of the best states to play the lottery. Not only can you visit one of the nearly 11,000 retail locations to play various games, but you can also use the official lottery website to play instant games and subscribe to plenty of draw games like Powerball, Mega Millions, and Lucky For Life.

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.