News writer
The calendar may have just flipped, but lottery luck is already spreading fast across the country. As the New Year's raffles are drawn and special promotions wrap up, players in several states are discovering that their holiday tickets are worth far more than they imagined.
These special drawings have created new millionaires, thousands of smaller winners, and plenty of anticipation for what's still to come.
Five big winners in Virginia
The Virginia Lottery announced it has drawn the winning tickets for Virginia's New Year's Millionaire Raffle. For this raffle, there are five $1 million winning tickets drawn, which are:
- Ticket #038045 – This ticket was purchased at Giant Food, located at 6011 Burke Center Parkway in Burke.
- Ticket #155852 – This ticket was purchased at 7-Eleven, located at 11022 Marsh Road in Bealeton.
- Ticket #300593 – This ticket was purchased at Food Lion, located at 46 Madison Plaza Drive in Madison.
- Ticket #556789 – This ticket was purchased at 7-Eleven, located at 2108 Mt. Vernon Avenue in Alexandria.
- Ticket #606487 – This ticket was purchased at Food Lion, located at 5209 Plaza Drive in Hopewell.
In addition, seven other tickets each won $100,000. Those winning ticket numbers are: #102733, #236534, #274621, #280437, #282922, #376648, and #538518.
There were another 1,000 tickets that each won $500. All of the winning numbers have been posted to the Virginia Lottery website.
20,000 raffle winners in Minnesota
The Minnesota Lottery announced the 20,000 winning numbers for its popular Minnesota Millionaire Raffle game, with two of those winning numbers being $1 million richer now. For this 2025 raffle, there were a total of one million tickets sold in a record 14 days.
The $1 million winning tickets were purchased at Holiday Stationstores, located at 13051 NW Round Lake Blvd. in Coon Rapids, and Forestland Sales, located at 1111 3rd St. in International Falls.
In addition to the $1 million winners, there were also five $100,000 prizes, five $50,000 prizes, five $25,000 prizes, and 40 $20,000 prizes. In total, there were 20,000 winning prizes handed out, so head to the Minnesota Lottery website to see the complete list of winning raffle numbers.
Second-chance drawing brings three new millionaires in Georgia
It wasn't a raffle, but there was a special second-chance drawing that took place with the Georgia Lottery that created three new millionaires to kick off 2026.
The lucky winners were selected randomly in the Georgia Millionaire second-chance drawing and announced on New Year's Day. The $1 million winners are residents of College Park, Grovetown, and Lawrenceville.
For those unfamiliar, Georgia Millionaire is a first-of-its-kind scratch-off ticket with $10,000 instant cash prizes. However, it also offered a special second-chance drawing where three lucky players won $1 million on New Year’s Day.
Players just had to enter their non-winning Georgia Millionaire tickets into the drawing. Now, three of those non-winning tickets turned into $1 million each.
Pennsylvania gearing up for the big draw
The Pennsylvania Lottery is getting ready to announce its big winners for its New Year's Millionaire Raffle. While the final drawing will take place on January 3, 2026, the final winners of the $50,000 Weekly Drawing prizes have been announced.
The New Year's Millionaire Raffle features eight weekly drawings that each award two prizes of $50,000. The winning tickets for the raffle tickets sold between December 23 and December 29 were:
- 00412130 – Winning ticket purchased at Save N' Fill, located at 20 South Kishacoquillas St. in Belleville.
- 00488501 – Winning ticket purchased at Tic Toc Food Mart, located at 1001 Mount Jackson Road in New Castle.
For the New Year's Millionaire Raffle, only 500,000 tickets were available to purchase. The final drawing takes place on January 3 and features 6,000 cash prizes totaling over $5 million, including four lucky winners taking home the top prize of $1 million each.
Enjoy playing the lottery, and please remember to play responsibly.
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