Nebraska joins Lotto America

Nebraska Lottery players already have dozens of different ways to play exciting games and win big prizes, but an entirely new draw game is about to be added to the lineup, and players will be able to buy tickets to play in just a few short weeks.

The Cornhusker State has become the latest state to join the lottery game Lotto America. Read on to learn all the details about how Nebraska players can start playing this exciting new game and what prizes they can expect to win.

Join the fun

Lotto America is a multi-state draw game that is currently offered by thirteen states. 

Tickets cost $1 each, and each jackpot starts at $2 million and grows every time no one takes home the top prize. The odds of winning a jackpot are 1 in 25,989,600.00.

The game is run by the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), which is the same organization that runs Powerball and Mega Millions. Lotto America is an entirely separate game, and its tickets are not eligible for any Powerball prizes. Lotto America tickets will be available to Nebraska residents starting on May 19.

Nebraska Lottery Director Brian Rockey said:

We are excited to add Lotto America to our product lineup. Many players have asked us to offer Lotto America in the past and the game fits in well with our existing draw games. As with all Nebraska Lottery games, a portion of every ticket sold goes to support good causes across Nebraska.

How to play

To create an entry, players must select five white ball numbers between 1 and 52 and one Star Ball number from 1 to 10. They win the jackpot if they match all five white balls plus the Star Ball.

In addition to the top prize, players who match all five white balls but miss the Star Ball will win $20,000. Picking four white balls correctly and the Star Ball will earn $1,000. If you miss all the white balls but pick the Star Ball correctly, you'll win $2.

You can also add a multiplier to your tickets. Players can buy the All Star Bonus for an additional $1 per play, which can multiply all prizes (except the jackpot) by 2, 3, 4, or 5 times. The bonus number is randomly selected before each drawing.

Drawings are held three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

States that currently offer Lotto America are:

• Delaware
• Idaho
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Maine
• Minnesota
• Montana
• New Mexico
• North Dakota
• Oklahoma
• South Dakota
• Tenessee
• West Virginia

Mississipi will also join Lotto America on May 13.

Lotto reborn

The current version of Lotto America was first launched in 2017; however, it is actually a revival of the original game, which ran from 1988 to 1992. The MUSL purchased this first version and eventually replaced it with Powerball.

The game was brought back to replace the Hot Lotto draw game, which was discontinued when ticket sales fell after a major game-fixing scandal was discovered. In 2015, Eddie Raymond Tipton, the information security director for the MUSL, rigged the game by installing a rootkit into the computer that generated random numbers to determine winning tickets. His scheme was discovered when he won a $14.3 million prize and tried to claim it anonymously through an off-shore trust company in Belize. The claim was rejected, and in the following investigation, Tipton, his brother Eddie, and their co-conspirator Robert Rhodes were all found guilty of attempting to defraud the game.

Big winners

While Lotto America doesn't feature the same super-sized jackpot as its big brother games like Powerball and Mega Millions, the game has produced some major winners in its first few years of existence.

The game's first drawing was held on November 15, 2017. However, it took until March 14, 2018, for the first jackpot to be won. Debbie Kujava collected a $23 million prize, which was the game's largest jackpot for four years.

Kujava split the fortune with her brother Dennis because they had a deal to share their winnings if either of them ever won the jackpot.

Debbie says that the best part of winning is that it allowed her to get ahead of her bills, which are piling up. She said:

I'm more relaxed now. I feel that I'm back to my normal self. I was a nervous wreck trying to keep ahead of bills. I was getting behind on credit cards. But yeah, now I feel back to normal.

A retired mechanic in Iowa won the biggest Lotto America jackpot ever. Earl Lape took home over $40 million from an April 2023 drawing. He said that because he bought the ticket on April 1, he wasn't sure if his win was real.

Lape told the Des Moines Register:

I thought it was a joke. I laughed. I thought it was April Fools.

His win was indeed real, and Lape collected $21.8 million after choosing the cash payout option.