News writer
For 15 years, billboards across Rhode Island haven't been able to display lottery jackpots higher than $999 million.
This week, that all changes, thanks to a state-wide sign upgrade.
What's changing?
In many states across the country, drivers are familiar with billboards displaying up-to-date Powerball, Mega Millions, and state lottery jackpots in bright lights. Many of these billboards are dated, using electronic displays that can't accurately reflect high jackpots.
Four signs in Rhode Island are leading the charge this week with new LED boxes. The displays will be brighter, offering high visibility to drivers. They'll also last longer than previous technology.
The Rhode Island Lottery teamed up with Sunshine Electronic Display Corp. to implement the changes. Cassie Scheib, Sunshine Electronic Display Corp., stated:
The lifespan of the LEDs that we use has greatly advanced over the past 15 years, along with increased visibility in our font design; this allows us to provide the boldest and brightest digits on the market. Sunshine has also made technology advances for remote monitoring and automatic jackpot amount updates for increased reliability.
Further, the displays will allow jackpot numbers to get up to $1 billion or higher.
Previously, whenever a jackpot exceeded this amount, officials simply used $999 million. The word “million” was a permanent fixture on the billboards, while the electronic numbers could be changed.
This has been an issue since 2016, when the jackpot exceeded $1 billion and a Powerball winner from Tennessee hit big with $1.586 billion.
All new Rhode Island signs will be up and running by the end of this week.
Jackpots are rising
Jackpots are increasingly exceeding $999 million.
The Powerball jackpot has reached $1 billion over five times in history. Four of them were won in the last three years.
Mega Millions has crawled over $1 billion seven times in history, including three times in the past two years.
The Rhode Island Lottery predicts that the trend of billion-dollar-plus jackpots could continue in light of sweeping changes in the Mega Millions game.
Mega Millions ticket prices increased from $2 to $5, and odds were increased from 1 in 302,575,350 to 1 in 290,472,336 thanks to the removal of a gold Mega Ball from the draw. These factors can potentially lead to much higher jackpots.
Both Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots roll over and increase for the next draw until there's a winning ticket matching all the numbers drawn.
Where are they?
All signs will be up and running by the end of this week.
The first sign to receive the new LED fixtures is on Route 146 at Admiral Street in Providence. The second sign is on the Wampanoag Trail. The last two boards will be situated back-to-back at the Elmwood Avenue Ramp on I-95 - one of them will be done today, and the other will be completed on Friday.
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