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Rome’s William Griffin may be the last winner of the Lotto South game.
The three-state lottery game, which began in September 2001, will be replaced next month by a new game that pays winners $1,000 a week for the rest of their lives, Virginia Lottery interim executive director Donna M. VanCleave said Thursday. Virginia’s Lotto South partners, Kentucky and Georgia, also will participate in the new “Win For Life” game.
Lotto South is the descendant of Virginia’s pick-six Lotto game, which began in January 1990. The games have sold more than $2.5 billion in tickets and paid more than $1.7 billion in jackpot prizes in Virginia, but player interest has waned in recent years, VanCleave said.
“Lotto was a great game for us,” she said. “We sold lots of tickets and had lots of winners, but over time it just became a little stale.”
She said Lotto sales peaked at $292 million in 1992. Lotto South sales in Virginia last year fell to $66.7 million as more players were enticed by the huge jackpots offered by the 12-state Mega Millions drawing and the slick marketing of instant scratch-off tickets. Georgia sold $67.4 million and Kentucky $17.6 million in Lotto South tickets last year.
Griffin, a vibration analyst with Temple-Inland, won the $27 million Lotto South jackpot in the drawing held last Saturday.
Georgia Lottery will hold a check presentation ceremony today to award Griffin’s prize, the largest Lotto South jackpot in the game’s history.
The event will be held at 2 p.m. at the Highway 411 Truck Stop, 145 U.S. 411 S.E., where the ticket was sold.
Georgia Lottery President and CEO Margaret DeFrancisco will present Griffin and the retailer with the large imitation check. The Truck Stop will receive a $25,000 retailer incentive bonus for selling the winning jackpot ticket.
