The home page of New Jersey Lottery website says ""Anything Can Happen in New Jersey"". Yes, Anything can happen in New Jersey especially in New Jersey Lottery. Once started with a single once in a weekly lottery game NJ lottery has grown to a wide range of games starting from daily games like Pick3, Pick4 to big Jackpot Lotteries like Pick 6 Extra, Powerball, and Mega Millions.
With 81.5 percent of voters voting in favor of establishing a state lottery, NJ lottery was established in 1969, owned and administrated by the New Jersey Government. New Jersey lottery is one of the oldest of US lotteries and first to introduce online lottery games.
Having Ralph Batch as its first Executing Director, New Jersey State Lottery has started its first weekly game. The first person to buy the ticket was Governor William T. Cahill. Around 2000 agency locations have gone on selling the New Jersey weekly lottery tickets by December 6th, 1970. Around Six million tickets were sold within two weeks and the money has not stopped flowing in since then
Even in the midst of the historic recession, The New Jersey Lottery sold a record USD 2.6 billion worth tickets for the fiscal year 2010.
The first Millionaire drawing was held in March 1971, and lucky winners were Edward and Kathleen Henry of West Caldwell. Then Chairman of the New Jersey Lottery Commission Dr. Thomas E Maggio presented the first annuity payment of USD 50,000 to the winners
In June 1977, New Jersey lottery has introduced Pick-4, a weekly computerized four digit game. If you need the entire history click here for New Jersy Pick 4 Winning numbers history since 1977
Pick-4 later turned into a daily game, including other daily games Pick-3, Jersey Cash5 extra.
And the journey continues, as of today, apart from multi-state games like PowerBall and Mega Millions, there were six lottery games, 5 Card Cash, the Jersey Cash 5 XTRA and the Pick 4 and Pick 3 lotteries. The pick 3 and 4 have midday and evening drawings every day.
There are recent upgrades to the Pick 3, Pick 4 and Jersey Cash 5 Xtra. For Pick 3 and Pick 4, a new extra ball called FIREBALL is added, according to New Jersey Lottery official website
Starting from October 3rd, 2016, Jersey Cash 5 players have the opportunity to increase their non-jackpot prizes by adding XTRA ticket for an additional $1.
"FIREBALL is an add-on feature available on Pick-3 and Pick-4. The cost is equal to the player’s base wager amount. By adding FIREBALL to your regular bet, you have more chances to win a prize with an extra number drawn at random by the Lottery. With FIREBALL, the Lottery is creating new FIREBALL winning combinations by replacing Lottery drawn winning numbers with the FIREBALL number". Check here for Pick 3 Fireball and Pick 4 Fireball
The odds of winning the lottery among the New Jersey lottery games ranging from 1 in 1,000 for a Pick-3 number straight, to 1 in 13,983,316 for selecting all six numbers in a Powerball drawing
Its worth mentioning that, a large part of the revenues of New Jersey lottery from tickets sales is going to good causes like education, School Nutrition Programs and Department of Military and Veteran Affairs.
On March 2013, Sandra McNeil of Morristown is the sole winner of a $211.7 million Powerball jackpot, becoming the first New Jerseyan ever to win a Powerball jackpot. New Jersey is the first state to sell winning jackpot tickets for both big Jackpot games Mega Millions and Powerball.
For details of New Jersey lottery and latest news visit New Jersey Lottery Official Website