Happy New Year from the Virginia lottery. Four gamblers will ring in the New Year $1 million richer thanks to the Virginia Lottery's second "millionaire raffle" game which guarantees four players will win top prizes of $1 million.

The winners will be announced right before the New Year and Virginia Lottery spokeswoman Jill Vaughan said, "We just wanted to create some new excitement around the holiday."

This raffle is unlike any other lottery drawing, only 440,000 $20 tickets will be sold and they went on sale Sunday. As of Monday morning 12,000 tickets have already been sold.

Vaughan is hoping this raffle will go as well as the first one when 330,000 tickets were sold in 37 days producing three $1 million winners in Virginia. Chances of winning the top prize in the raffle are 1 in 110,000.

Along with the 4 $1 million winners there will also be four $50,000 winners and 400 winners of $500 each. The chances of winning any prize are 1 in 1,078.


- 2007-11-05