News writer; Opinion columnist
While most people end the year with champagne, parties, or a quiet night with friends and family, the Montana State Lottery closed out 2023 by creating three new millionaires. The annual Montana Millionaire lottery drawing was held on December 26, and three lucky winners each took home a $1 million grand prize.
Montana Millionaire
Unlike other lottery games that can have several draws a week, the grand prize for Montana Millionaire is awarded only once a year, making it one of the state's most anticipated games. For 2023, the number of million-dollar grand prizes was increased from two to three.
One winning ticket was sold at the Heidelberg Lounge & Casino in Great Falls with the number 346589. The second was purchased at the Town Pump of Kalispell with the number 299951. The Town & Country Supply in Billings sold the final big winner with the winning number 315800.
So far, two of the three winners have come forward to claim their prizes, although they have yet to be publicly identified.
In addition to the big drawing the day after Christmas, the game awards ‘early-bird prizes,’ including a $25,000 prize issued on November 25 and a $100,000 drawing held on December 15. Early bird winners are still eligible to win the grand prize.
The game also issues 4,100 instant win prizes ranging from $500 to $100. Instant win tickets remain eligible to win prizes from all of the drawings.
Limited edition
Tickets for the 2023 lottery cost $20 each and were available for purchase from November 1. to December 25, although they sold out long before anyone had time to wrap Christmas presents.
Montana Millionaire is a limited-ticket game, which means that a set number of tickets are issued each year, and once they are sold out, the game is closed to new players.
This year, 380,000 tickets were released, which was an increase of 100,000 from the previous year. Despite the higher quantity of tickets available, the 2023 game sold out in less than six hours. This was a significantly faster pace than the 2022 game, which took a day and a half to sell out, and the 2021 game, which sold its last ticket a full six days after they first went on sale.
Numbers are pre-printed on the tickets, which means that players don't choose their own numbers. The odds of taking home one of the seven-figure prizes was 1:126,666.7.
The game has proven to be popular and high-selling over the years. Montana Lottery content manager Dan Iverson told KRTV:
A lot of states struggle to sell out their raffle game, even in immediately neighboring states. Montana is kind of an anomaly on a national scale because our raffle game is so popular. Out of the seventeen we've done, I don't think two have been exactly the same. We've always switched up the number of tickets or the number of prizes.
The state wins
State citizens voted to create the lottery with a referendum in 1986; since then, it has paid out over $853 million in winnings. The state has received $320 million back from ticket sales, and sales agents have earned $90 million in commissions.
Proceeds from the game are used to fund Montana's STEM/Healthcare Scholarship Program and the state’s general fund.
