Powerball will undergo some changes

The Iowa Lottery will make some changes in the Powerball game. Lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer says the first change will just give you a few more lucky numbers to choose from. For those first five numbers you choose, there will now be an expanded “pool’ of 53 numbers to choose from instead of the current 49. There’ll still be 42 options for your Powerball number, and the price and times for drawings will be the same. Another change will be a new state added to the roster of those where the multi-state Powerball lotto game is played. Powerball tickets go on sale next month in South Carolina, and while that’ll mean more tickets sold, it also means more possible winners, which could make it harder to win a big jackpot, something Neubauer says everybody wants. Neubauer says next time the jackpot rises over its record, a 228-million dollar jackpot set in 1998, only part of ticket-sale money will go into that new record pot.She says the rest of the money will go into a “bonus pool” money that’ll go to winners of the second prize, so instead of 100-thousand for matching five numbers, you could win a million or more. Nuebauer says the annuity paid for the jackpot will change from 25 to 30 years. She says a lot of people just want all the cash, but the figures show the Lottery gets a return-rate investing the money that’s hard to beat, so next month your “annuity” payment option will let you take annual payments for 30 years instead of the current 25. The changes take effect in October.