| Updated: 11/01/2009 7:42 am |
Published: 11/01/2009 12:42 am |
It's official. Arkansas is now an active Powerball state. Saturday night state lottery officials celebrated America's most popular jackpot games new home in The Natural State.
The River Market came alive Saturday with a Powerball kick off party and people seemed to be excited about having more ways to hit the jackpot. The huge outdoor party was reminiscent of New Years' Eve on Time Square. Lottery officials literally threw a ball to welcome Powerball.
"I think the Powerball is going to bring a lot more business in because you can win a lot more money,” said Chris Alley of Joe’s Grocery.
He’s just as excited as his customers. "I'm getting into the training mode where I can print off practice tickets,” he said earlier Saturday.
But as of 10:15 Saturday night, customers were officially able to line up to play a new element of the lottery.
"You have the element of players that play the scratch off game. You have an element of players that play an element like Powerball,” said Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue. The difference is a chance to win much more money. "A difference between 100 thousand and 144 million,” Alley said.
"I think they should've done it years ago. I don't know why it took this long to get it,” said Matt Goodson who started playing scratch off since the lottery came to Arkansas.
"I'll probably still do both to be honest with you. They're both fun," he said.
Powerball is played in states all across the country. Tickets cost one dollar and players have the option to increase their chances of winning by adding a power-play for an additional dollar. Powerball winners are announced every Wednesday and Saturday.
Non-traditional college students, and current students will get more money from the Arkansas scholarship lottery than previously planned. The Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved some new rules Friday. Legislators and some members of the board thought rules previously put too much emphasis on students just getting out of high school. The board's regulations set aside $8 million of the scholarships for non-traditional students leaving the rest for traditional students, those who enroll in college right after high school.
