The Georgia Lottery is the statewide lottery in the U.S. state of Georgia. Headquartered in Atlanta and run by the Georgia Lottery Corporation, the lottery takes in over one billion US dollars each year. Half the money goes to prizes, one-third to education, and the remainder to operating and marketing the lottery. The education money funds the HOPE Scholarship, and has become a successful model for other states, including the new South Carolina Education Lottery.
Long unconstitutional, a state-run lottery was explicitly allowed in a 1992 amendment to Article I, Section II, Paragraph VIII of the Georgia State Constitution.
The original weekly jackpot game, Lotto Georgia, later merged with Lotto Kentucky and Lotto Virginia to become Lotto South. Like Florida, Georgia also has a once-daily Fantasy 5 game, as well as the twice-daily Cash 3 and Cash 4 games. It also participates in the multi-state Mega Millions lottery, and has numerous scratch-and-win instant games which change frequently. In February 2006, Lotto South was replaced by a new game, Win For Life.
The Georgia Lottery Corporation was created in 1992 by the Georgia General Assembly and then-governor of Georgia Zell Miller in the Lottery for Education Act (OCGA 50-27). Rebecca Paul, who began the Florida Lottery, then ran the Georgia Lottery for its first decade, before leaving to start up the new Tennessee Lottery in 2004.
External links
- Georgia Lottery general info
- Georgia Lottery Corporation
Categories: Lotteries | Georgia (U.S. state)
