Ohio’s schools are regular winners in Powerball, Mega Millions, other lottery games

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — Ohio’s schools are regular winners in Powerball and other Ohio Lottery games because of the amount of money that is transferred to the lottery’s educational fund.

Tonight’s jackpot is an estimated $1.2 billion, which under the rules of the state constitution means an estimated 75 cents of each $2 ticket sale goes to help Ohio’s schools.

“This is a rare occurrence,” Danielle Frizzi-Babb, Ohio Lottery communications director, told News Center 7′s Haley Kosik about the jackpot, the second largest in the game’s history.

“One-hundred percent of lottery goes to the lottery profit’s education fund. That supports education here in Ohio,” she said.

For Monday’s $1 billion jackpot, the state saw $8.9 million in Powerball sales, which helped generate about $3.7 million for the Lottery Profits for Education Fund. Proceeds “shall be used solely for the support of elementary, secondary, vocational and special education programs” as determined in appropriations made by the state General Assembly, according to ohiolottery.com.

As for tonight’s drawing, Frizzi-Babb said, “We are projecting about $12 million in sales, which is going to generate about $4.7 million more for the Lottery Profits Education Fund.”

That’s a haul of nearly $8.5 million to schools in Ohio in less than a week.

And this is the second time there has been a huge lottery jackpot this year.

“We just had Mega Millions, which was just over $1 billion, just this summer,” Frizzi-Babb said.

When you take a look at the impact this has on Ohio schools, there has been a gradual increase in money from 2017 to 2021.

In 2021, Ohio Lottery created nearly $1.4 billion transferred to its dducation fund, which accounted for about 12 percent of the state’s education funding for that year.

“You still have time to come buy your two-dollar ticket to help our schools,” Frizzi-Babb said.

By the way, you can remain anonymous if you win the Powerball jackpot.

Ohio is one of 11 states that allow the lottery winner to not disclose his, her or their identity. Six states allow people to form a trust to claim prize money without having to disclose their names.