'Jackpot Fatigue:' As lottery drawings continue to reach the billions, are players just tired?
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - It's not just Friday - it's billion-dollar dream Friday.
The Mega Millions lottery drawing tonight is worth at least $1.25 billion - surpassing the billion-dollar Powerball a couple of weeks ago.
With such big jackpots back-to-back, are people getting tired of playing?
Some time ago, they changed the Powerball and Mega Millions to increase the odds and drive jackpots higher, which is working, but it's not all good.
When it comes to the lottery...what is your "wow" level?
"It drives us nuts in the lottery business, but people talk about 100 $1 million jackpot, it's not a lot of money," said Drew Svitko, executive director of the Pennsylvania Lottery.
Regulars will always play but it's the casual players that fuel lottery fever and Svitko said these days, they don't start coming around for a while.
"Over $300 million, that's when we start to see a pretty significant increase in sales which just keeps growing the bigger jackpot," he explained.
The previously rarely-attained billion-dollar jackpot is getting more frequent.
"There's this thing in the lottery industry we call 'jackpot fatigue' and that's the more times people see a specific number, the less exciting it will be," he said. "So, every $1 billion jackpot we see, people are a little less excited about it."
That is not to say the dreams aren't out there ahead of tonight's drawing.
"We're selling, right now, about 900 tickets a minute statewide which adds up to be tens of millions of dollars just between draws," Svitko said.
If you do win, everyone will know.
"We're required by law to release the name of the claimant and the hometown, and the amount won," he explained. "We're also required to withhold 25-percent federal taxes and then there's 3-percent state taxes."
While the big jackpot is mega great for the lottery's bottom line and the programs it benefits, Svitko would like to see a winner in Pennsylvania.
Between the drawings, they're bringing in tens of millions of dollars, so what about when the jackpots are less than $100 million?
During that time, it's just single-digit millions for each drawing.