Colorado Lottery Results

About the Colorado Lottery

Pretty much all state lotteries get off to a good start and the Colorado Lottery was no exception. Having begun lottery ticket sales in January 1983, the CO Lottery managed to perform well above expectations by bringing in $137 million in its first six months, when just $60 million had been predicted.

At this time, scratch tickets were the most common form of lottery, but on April 23, 1983 Colorado Lottery's first grand prize drawing was held. It proved an instant hit with Carolynn Andersen from Cedaredge having all of the winning numbers and becoming the lottery's first millionaire.

The CO Lottery see themselves as ‘serving Colorado' and rightly so as not only do they offer a wide variety of instant and draw lottery games, they also distribute profits to a number of state funds. These funds are mainly concerned with improving and supporting the parks, conservation and wildlife of the Centennial State.

But in order to create profits for these projects, the Colorado Lottery has had to offer a variety of games with big jackpots. The most popular lottery game exclusive to the state is the Colorado Lotto, now called Colorado Lotto+ as of September 22nd 2019, which has a jackpot that's regularly worth more than $1 million. The size of the prizes depends on the number of tickets sold so the more people play, the bigger prizes get.

But the CO Lotto+ isn't the only game available in the Centennial State; also on offer Pick 3, Pick 3 Midday (added on 30th October 2016), Cash 5 and Lucky for Life, as well as the two biggest multi-state lotteries in the US. These come in the form of Colorado Powerball and Mega Millions and are generally known to have some of the biggest jackpots in the world.

Eugene and Stanislawa Markiewicz can certainly testify to this as they became Colorado Powerball's first jackpot winners on October 10, 2007. The couple had immigrated to America in 2002 and live near Golden, Jefferson County, but purchased their winning ticket at a Safeway store in Westminster. The Markiewicz's chose to receive their full $20 million win through annual payments which is a popular choice in Colorado: Out of the 361 winners of the Colorado Lotto, 277 have chosen the annuity option while just 84 went for cash.