If you're a lottery player, there's one thing that is crucial to your success and is totally out of your control. No matter how hard you work to master it, you'll never really understand it.
Luck
Of course, by definition, luck is random and can't be directed, influenced, or controlled. And yet, some states seem to have more luck than others. They turn out more winners, cash in more jackpots, and pay out more money than lotteries in other states.
The lottery is a game of chance, which means that winners should be spread evenly across the country. However, when we look closer at the data, we see that some states produce winners at a much higher rate than others. Do they have more rabbits' feet or four-leaf clovers?
Whatever the reason, these are the states where you should buy your next ticket if you want to improve your chances of winning a big prize.
Powerball
The first modern multi-state lottery game was launched in 1988, and its invention is widely credited to Steve Caputo and Dr. Edward J. Stanek, the director of Iowa's state lottery.
Operating under the name Lotto America, the game initially involved fourteen states and the District of Columbia. In 1992, the name of the game changed to what we know it today: Powerball.
Powerball is one of the most popular lottery games in the world because it offers some of the biggest jackpots, including the two biggest prizes in American lottery history.
Forty-five different states and the District of Columbia participate in the game, and drawings occur three times a week, with a Monday drawing added in 2021. The odds of matching all five numbers and the Powerball are 1 in 292.2 million.
With 34 grand prize winners, Indiana has produced more Powerball winners than any other state in the union, although no Hoosier has won a jackpot since 2017.
While this number of wins may seem surprising, given that Indiana has only the seventeenth-largest population of American states, it's worth noting that it was one of the original states to participate in the game, so it's had more opportunities to win than almost anyone else.
Missouri (31), Minnesota (22), Pennsylvania (19), and Wisconsin (19) round out the top five for winning the most jackpots.
However, when you consider the number of Powerball winners relative to the size of the state population, Delaware actually produces winners at a higher rate than any other state in the country, with a ratio of 10.1 jackpot winners per 1,000,000 people.
New Hampshire comes in second place, with 7.9 wins per 1,000,000 people, followed by Rhode Island (7.3), Indiana (5.7), and Nebraska (5.1) to complete the top five. Two of those five states, New Hampshire and Delaware, are in the top five for states that spend the most per person on Powerball tickets, with per capita spending topping out at $53.92 and $44.09, respectively.
Of course, if some states are the luckiest, that means some have to be unlucky. Residents of Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Wyoming have never won a Powerball jackpot in the game's entire history.
We should also keep in mind that five states, Hawaii, Alabama, Alaska, Nevada, and Utah, don't participate in either Powerball or Mega Millions, so they're excluded from our rankings.
Mega Millions
Four years after the first Powerball drawing, Mega Millions, launched on August 31, 1996. Michigan Lottery Commissioner Bill Martin and Illinois Lottery Director Desiree Rogers are credited with its creation.
It was originally known as the Big Game, and tickets were sold in only six states: Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Virginia.
Today, tickets can be purchased in 45 states and Washington, DC. Mega Millions drawings occur twice a week on Tuesday and Friday. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350.
While it's only a few years younger than its multi-state rival, its list of lucky states looks quite different from the Powerball winners.
For example, Deleware drops from first to worst, having never won a single Mega Millions jackpot.
New York leads the way in terms of the number of jackpots won. Forty-three winning tickets have been sold in the Empire State. However, three of these tickets were never claimed by the winners.
The rest of the winner list tracks more closely with population, with California (34), New Jersey (23), Ohio (20), and Michigan (18) comprising the rest of the top five.
Interestingly, the list of states that have never won is far longer than Powerball's, with eighteen states, plus the District of Columbia, having never collected a top prize. If you want to know which states have the worst lottery luck overall, neither Wyoming nor North Dakota have ever won a Mega Millions or Powerball jackpot.
To be fair, some of these states have only recently joined the game, such as Mississippi, which didn't sell tickets for the game until 2020.
Biggest Jackpots
While some states excel at winning the most jackpots, others set the standard for winning the biggest jackpots. By this measure, the Golden State wins the gold.
Of the ten biggest jackpots of all time, four have been won by players in California, including the three biggest. Edwin Castro of Alta Dena, CA, became the all-time record holder when he won a $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot in 2022. He chose the cash option and collected just under one billion dollars before paying his taxes.
Since winning, Castro has been on a real estate buying spree, purchasing three homes in the LA area collectively valued at $76 million.
The second-biggest winner bought their ticket for a $1.76 billion Powerball win in Frazier Park, CA. Although this drawing was held in October, the winners waited until March 15 winner to step forward and claim the prize.
Theodorus Struyck presented himself as a representative of a group of players who collectively purchased the ticket. There's no word on how many players are in the group, and Struyck has made no public comment.
The ticket was purchased at a Midway Market, which has been a family-owned business for thirty years. The store received a one-million-dollar bonus check for selling the winning ticket.
The third biggest jackpot won in California was a $1.59 billion Powerball prize, which was split three ways, including with a husband and wife who purchased their ticket in Chino Hills, CA. Six months after the drawing, Marvin and Mae Acosta claimed the prize. The couple bought their ticket from a 7-11 and chose the cash option, which totaled $386 million.
According to California Lottery director Hugo Lopez, the couple waited so long to collect their prize because they wanted to get a team together to help them manage their newfound wealth:
It may have taken six months for them to come to one of our offices, but these winners did just what we tell all our winners to do - they read our Winner's Handbook and then assembled a team of legal and financial advisors to help them make the most of this windfall and prepare them for their new life as Lottery winners.
Those prizes might also feel a little larger in California since the state doesn't tax lottery winnings (although all players still owe 24% in federal taxes)
Lucky stores
Just as some states seem luckier than others, some retailers also sell more winners than anyone else. So, if you really want to increase your odds, don't just go to a lucky state; buy your ticket at one of the stores that are proven millionaire makers.
For example, the Smoke 4 Less in Newburgh, New York, has sold six tickets worth at least one million dollars in the last year. The store has sold so many seven-figure winners that players line up around the block anytime a big jackpot comes up.
Store manager Nicole Maltz told CBS News:
I have people coming from all over the state, different states.
The California lottery released a list of the state's luckiest retailers based on the following criteria: they've sold at least one ticket worth $100,000 or more, paid out an average of 400 winning tickets a week, and paid out an average of at least $4,000 a week.
According to their research, the luckiest store in the state is Cigarettes 4 Discount in Northern California, which met the above criteria and sold two $1.2 million Powerball tickets on the same day.
If you're a Florida player, there's only one place where you should buy your lottery tickets: Publix. Not only is Publix a popular grocery store chain, but its stores sell more winning tickets than any other retailer.
Only two billion dollar prizes have been won in the state of Florida, but the winning tickets were both purchased at Publix. In August 2023 alone, Publix sold eight of the top 12 biggest winning lottery tickets, including a Mega Millions ticket worth $1.58 billion.
Just last month, all four winning tickets for the Florida Lottery's February 24, 2024 drawing were purchased at Publix.
However, if you're looking for the luckiest store in the entire state, you might want to try the Rightway Food Store in Orlando. Over a two-year period, this store sold more winning lottery tickets worth over $600 than any other retailer in Florida.
