Louisiana Lottery
There’s a rich lottery history in the state of Louisiana. In fact, the state was home to the Louisiana State Lottery Company, and tickets were sold nationwide, quickly becoming the biggest US lottery. The lottery was originally set up by a group of entrepreneurs in 1868 and at that time was the only legal lottery in the country. It soon developed a bad reputation, though, for corruption, ending in 1893.
Today’s Louisiana Lottery is far less controversial, and tickets first went on sale on September 6, 1991, in the form of an instant scratch card that’s no longer available today. A couple of months later in January 1992, the state launched its first draw-style game in the form of the LA Lotto and with a starting jackpot of $2 million. Today, the jackpot starts somewhat lower at $250,000. Louisiana residents can also purchase lottery tickets for Powerball.
By the time the LA Lottery’s twentieth anniversary rolled around in 2011, the corporation had dished out over $2 billion to the state fund, most of which went to repairing Hurricane Katrina damage in 2005.
