Pennsylvania Lottery raffle tickets on sale

"Awarding 8,000 prizes makes the upcoming game the largest Millionaire Raffle to date," said Lottery Executive Director Ed Trees. "The fifth installment of this popular raffle game again features the best odds ever offered by the Pennsylvania Lottery for winning a million dollars."

Tickets will be available until 5 p.m. on Dec. 29, or until sold out, which ever comes first. Only 625,000 tickets will be sold. When the last raffle ticket is issued, the game will close and no additional tickets will be available for purchase.

Because Millionaire Raffle tickets are scheduled to be sold over a seven-week period, Trees urged players to sign the backs of their tickets and keep them in a safe place until the Dec. 29 drawing. Tickets for four previous Millionaire Raffles sold out before the drawing.

Each of the game's $20 tickets offers a 1-in-125,000 chance of winning $1 million. The new Millionaire Raffle drawing will award five top prizes of $1 million; five $100,000 cash prizes; 200 prizes of $1,000 cash; and 7,790 prizes of $100 cash. A total of 8,000 prizes worth $6,479,000 will be awarded.

Each raffle ticket will contain a unique, eight-digit number issued sequentially across the commonwealth from the Lottery's central computer, starting with number 00000001. The last raffle ticket issued for the game will contain the raffle ticket number 00625000. The eight-digit number printed on the ticket must match the eight-digit raffle number combination selected in the drawing -- in the exact sequence in which it was selected -- to be considered a winning ticket.

The winning raffle ticket numbers will be randomly selected at 7 p.m. on Dec. 29 when the Lottery's live drawing show will televise the selection of the five, $1 million, top-prize raffle ticket numbers and the five, $100,000, second-prize raffle ticket numbers. The remaining 7,990 winning ticket numbers will also be selected, but will not be televised live due to time constraints.

A complete list of all 8,000 winning raffle ticket numbers will be available the following day at http://www.palottery.com and at Lottery retailers.

Odds of winning a $100,000 prize are 1-in-125,000; odds of winning a $1,000 prize are 1-in-3,125; and the odds of winning $100 are 1-in-80. The overall odds of winning any prize are 1-in-78.

To date, one $100,000 prize remains unclaimed from the Dec. 30, 2006, Millionaire Raffle drawing. Tickets for that raffle expire Dec. 31, 2007.