Oregon Lottery - St. Patricks Day raffle winners

If you’ve purchased a St. Patrick’s Day raffle ticket from the Oregon lottery, you’ll be happy to hear that winners were picked today. The $1 million ticket number is 130,338. The raffle isn’t the only offering that the Oregon Lottery has, though, and while I wouldn’t recommend looking into no faxing payday loans to pay for a ticket, playing the Oregon lottery benefits more people than just the lucky winners.

The Oregon Lottery St. Patrick’s Day raffle
The Oregon Lottery started its St. Patrick’s Day raffle years ago – and it has always been a very popular game. Unlike the one-in-a-million chances of some lottery games, this Oregon Lottery raffle has comparatively good odds: 1-in-250,000 to win $1 million, and 1-in-250 to win $100. The tickets go on sale in January each year, and the winners are announced on St. Patrick’s Day. Even if you missed out on this year’s Oregon Lottery raffle, you can mark your calendar to purchase tickets next year.
Oregon Lottery benefits Oregon projects
Created in 1984, the Oregon Lottery is set up specifically to benefit Oregon residents and state projects. Fifty percent of the revenue from the Oregon Lottery is legally required to be returned to the residents in the form of lottery prizes. Another 34 percent of revenues are returned to public purposes that voters in Oregon determine — a simple vote sends money to projects, no governmental payday lending necessary. Currently, revenues from the self-funded Oregon Lottery go to the Education Stability Fund, economic development, state parks and national resource programs. Since 1985, the Oregon Lottery has given more than $5.9 billion to these state projects.
Using the Oregon Lottery as a model
While the Oregon Lottery was not the first public lottery in the United States (that was New Hampshire in 1964), many states have modeled themselves off of the Oregon Lottery’s system of voter-approved funding allocations. According to Wikipedia, 42 states currently run some form of state lottery, and most of them also participate in interstate contests that have huge prizes, but very low odds of winning.
Oregon State Lottery tackles gambling addiction
Oregon, like many other states, has recently had to tackle the issue of gambling addiction. Some argue that the almost ubiquitous availability of state lotteries gives the state some responsibility for helping treat problem gamblers. In Oregon state, there are a variety of free services offered for problem gamblers, partially funded by the state lottery.