Louisiana Lottery to Begin Offering Larger Jackpots for Lotto

It's only the fourth time in the Louisiana Lottery's 28 year history that they have made changes to their flagship game, Lotto. The changes announced yesterday by the Louisiana Lottery will no doubt wind up putting more money into players' hands. How much more money? How does half a million dollars sound?

Okay, let's clarify for you. As of August 5th, the starting amount for any Lotto game hosted by the Louisiana Lottery will have a starting jackpot of $500,000. In order to fund that kind of jackpot Lottery officials decided to make some changes within the game.

Players will now be required to select six numbers out of 42. Currently, the game asks players to match six numbers out of 40. Under the new matrix, the odds of winning will jump from 1 in 30 to a 1 in 34.4.

Lottery President Rose Hudson said in a press release from the Louisiana Lottery that the changes to the Lotto game were simply a reflection of what players had been requesting.

There will be more to love about Lotto this summer with more frequent $1 million-plus jackpots that our loyal Lotto players enjoy. Our players have spoken, and we listened with a Louisiana game that is still just a dollar.

By the way, you did read that correctly, the cost to play the game will not change. It will still be one dollar to play. Lotto drawings are held twice a week in conjunction with the Powerball drawings on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

In order to prepare for the August 5th changes, the Lottery will temporarily suspend the multi-draw option for future drawings.