Wild
Card Jackpot Bigger Than Lottery’s Signs Can Display
(Pierre)
– The jackpot signs at Lottery retail locations across the state
say the top prize for the Wild Card 2 lotto game is $999 thousand,
but that’s because the signs can’t go any higher. The estimated
jackpot for Wednesday’s drawing is really $1,030,000.
Because
they can’t display a larger amount, the signs will continue to show
$999 thousand for Wild Card 2 until someone wins and the cash
jackpot starts over at $100,000. The correct jackpot amount is
available at the Lottery’s website
www.sdlottery.org.
The three
foot square signs with LED displays are hung in the convenience and
grocery stores that sell lotto tickets. Each sign can display three
digits and decimals for each of the four lotto games offered by the
Lottery. While the numbers can change, the dollar denomination
below the amount is permanently displayed. For Wild Card 2 and
Dakota Cash, the denomination is thousands. For Powerball and Hot
Lotto, it’s millions.
“This is
only the third time in nine years the jackpot has been more than a
million dollars,” said Lottery executive director Norm Lingle. “But
this is the second consecutive run it’s happened.”
A Montana
man won the $1,127,000 jackpot in August of last year. That was the
last time someone won the game’s jackpot, and only the second time
the jackpot was higher than $1 million. The first million dollar
Wild Card jackpot of $1,284,326 was won in Idaho in August of 2001.
Wild Card
2 is played in South Dakota, North Dakota, Idaho and Montana.
Players pick five numbers from 1 to 31 and a face card, and get two
plays for $1. The odds of winning the cash jackpot are 1 in
1,359,288. The odds of winning any prize in the game are 1 in 6.
The game began in February 1998.
