Wisconsin Lottery

The Wisconsin Lottery is run by the government of Wisconsin. It is a member of the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL). Its games include Powerball, Megabucks, Supercash!, Badger 5, Pick 3, Pick 4 and numerous scratch games.

The minimum age to buy tickets is 18.

Until 2003, a game show produced by the Wisconsin Lottery and Hearst-Argyle Television called the Wisconsin Lottery Money Game was aired weekly on the Lottery's network of stations throughout the state of Wisconsin. Contestants won a chance to play the game (and $100) with a scratch game ticket which featured three "TV" symbols, and if not chosen for the main game, would win at least $500 from a pool of money split between them and the other 54 contestants not chosen. Five contestants would play the game, and would play four or five rounds where they would choose a cash prize from behind the letters WISCONSIN LOTTERY MONEYGAME, which were set up in the style of the Wheel of Fortune gameboard, but with reversed play. Contestants instead hit a plunger to light up one of the word columns, then drew one letter in the word to reveal. The letter was then turned over to reveal the prize, which in the last round was as high as $7,500. The winner of the main game would go on to the bonus round, where a prize wheel allowed the contestant to spin up to $50,000, with the wheel alternating between constant $25,000 and $50,000 spaces. Also during the show, new instant games were introduced along with other lottery news, and a second chance drum drawing from among losing mailed-in instant and online game tickets was played.

 

The progam was taped at the studios of WISN-TV in Milwaukee, and all contestants (along with a spouse/invited guest over eighteen) outside of Milwaukee and the surrounding four county area received a two night stay at the Grand Milwaukee Hotel (now the Four Points Sheraton-Mitchell Field) for their appearance. Hosts over the years were Mark Johnson and Parker Drew, and the show's long time hostess was Lori Minetti. Later the game show was converted to a new format called the Super Money Game in mid-2002, involving more games and a smaller contestant pool, equivalent to a lower-cost version of the Hoosier Lottery's Hoosier Millionaire.

Television Network

 

The statewide lottery television network consisted of the following stations from the lottery's inception until 2002;

WISN (12) - Milwaukee
WKOW (27) - Madison
WBAY (2) - Green Bay
WXOW & WQOW (19/18) - La Crosse/Eau Claire
WAOW/WYOW (9/34) - Wausau/Eagle River/Rhinelander
KBJR (6) - Superior/Duluth, MN

 

WISN Radio (1130) in Milwaukee also broadcast the drawings on radio until the station's 1997 sale from Hearst to Clear Channel Communications. Several stations in the state would pickup the audio portion of the television drawings, but most (as is the case now) read the winning numbers from Associated Press releases from the lottery after the drawings which are also published in newspapers.
[edit] Drawings

 

The lottery's nightly drawings, starting in 1991 with the introduction of Supercash (a $250,000 daily six-number game through most of its history) also took place at WISN-TV, and were usually drawn by Channel 12 employees not employed by the station's news department, or by employees of WISN Radio and WLTQ, which were owned by Hearst at the time and shared the WISN studios. In 1993, the lottery added a Pick 3 game, followed by Pick 4 in 1997. After the lottery decided to partake in the multi-state Lotto*America game in 1989, the state began its Wisconsin's Very Own Megabucks million-dollar lottery drawing after the launch of Powerball (which replaced L*A) in 1992.

 

Other games were added by the Lottery, but were not always successful, such as the multi-state Daily Millions, which was infamous for having few winners of the $1 million prize, and having a complicated drawing procedure involving a larger number pool and various colored balls, and the state's Cash4Life game, which offered an annuitized prize of $1,000 per week for life with a first-prize win from a 99-ball pool; only four players won that game by its end in 1999. WISN and the state lottery network never televised Daily Millions or Cash4Life drawings. The Badger 5 game continues today, however; that play style is found in most U.S. lotteries.

 

The televised drawings and the Money Game were discontinued at the end of 2002 due to both budget constraints and marginalizing of the game show into lower rated timeslots. The drawings then moved to Madison, but the final stations which were part of the state network continue to receive first priority by the lottery to release the nightly drawing's numbers. The Powerball drawing is now free to be aired by any station which wants to air it in Wisconsin, although stations usually only televise the drawing during high-paying jackpots.

The first "modern" lottery tickets in Wisconsin were sold on Oneida Nation land near Green Bay. Before the Wisconsin Lottery began, some players who did not want to drive to Illinois tried their luck at stores on the reservation. The main game offered by the Oneida Nation was Big Green, which began as a pick-6-of-36 jackpot game. The Oneida Nation also offered a televised bingo game program on Green Bay television stations in the mid-to-late 80's, which was in the form of a caller reading the numbers on the bottom of the screen, with the lighted number board on the top portion, allowing winners to redeem winning cards on-reservation at the tribe's bingo hall.

 

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