15 May 2024 
To The home page of New Jersey Lottery website says "Anything Can Happen in New Jersey". Yes, Anything can happen in New Jersey especially in New Jersey Lottery. Once started with a single once in a weekly lottery game NJ lottery has grown to a wide range of games starting from daily games like Pick3, Pick4 to big Jackpot Lotteries like Pick 6 Extra, Powerball, and Mega Millions.
With 81.5 percent of voters voting in favor of establishing a state lottery, NJ lottery was established in 1969, owned and istrated by the New Jersey Government. New Jersey lottery is one of the oldest of US lotteries and first to introduce online lottery games.
Having Ralph Batch as its first Executive Director, the New Jersey State Lottery has started its first weekly game. The first person to buy the ticket was Governor William T. Cahill. Around 2000 agency locations started selling the New Jersey weekly lottery tickets by December 6th, 1970. Around six million tickets were sold within two weeks, and the money has not stopped flowing in since then.
Even in the midst of the historic recession, the New Jersey Lottery sold a record USD 2.6 billion worth tickets for the fiscal year 2010.
The first Millionaire drawing was held in March 1971, and lucky winners were Edward and Kathleen Henry of West Caldwell. Then, chairman of the New Jersey Lottery Commission, Dr. Thomas E Maggio, presented the first annuity payment of $50,000 to the winners.
In June 1977, the New Jersey Lottery introduced Pick-4, a weekly computerized four-digit game. If you need the entire history, explore the New Jersey Pick 4 Winning numbers history since 1977.
Pick-4 later turned into a daily game, including other daily games, Pick-3, Jersey Cash5 extra.
And the journey continues, as of today, apart from multi-state games like PowerBall and Mega Millions, there are six lottery games, 5 Card Cash, the Jersey Cash 5 XTRA and the Pick 4 and Pick 3 lotteries. The pick 3 and 4 have midday and evening drawings every day.
There are recent upgrades to the Pick 3, Pick 4, and Jersey Cash 5 Xtra. For Pick 3 and Pick 4, a new extra ball called FIREBALL is added, according to the New Jersey Lottery official website.
Starting from October 3rd, 2016, Jersey Cash 5 players have the opportunity to increase their non-jackpot prizes by adding XTRA ticket for an additional $1.
"FIREBALL is an add-on feature available on Pick 3 Fireball and Pick 4 Fireball. The cost is equal to the player’s base wager amount. By adding FIREBALL to your regular bet, you have more chances to win a prize with an extra number drawn at random by the Lottery. With FIREBALL, the Lottery is creating new winning combinations by replacing Lottery-drawn winning numbers with the FIREBALL number."
The odds of winning the lottery among the New Jersey lottery games range from 1 in 1,000 for a Pick-3 number straight to 1 in 13,983,316 for selecting all six numbers in a Powerball drawing.
It's worth mentioning that a large part of the revenues of the New Jersey lottery from ticket sales is going to good causes like education, School Nutrition Programs, and Department of Military and Veteran Affairs.
On March 2013, Sandra McNeil of Morristown is the sole winner of a $211.7 million Powerball jackpot, becoming the first New Jerseyan ever to win a Powerball jackpot. New Jersey is the first state to sell winning jackpot tickets for both big Jackpot games Mega Millions and Powerball.
For details of New Jersey lottery and latest news visit New Jersey Lottery Official Website
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