After 20 years together, we’ve endured a lot of yelling and screaming!

It took two years and two popular votes by the citizens of Idaho to create the Idaho Lottery in 1988.  After a citizen’s initiative that received an overwhelming 60% approval that was later declared unconstitutional by the Idaho Supreme Court, the Idaho Legislature passed a Constitutional Amendment that appeared before the voting electorate in 1988.

On November 8, 1988, Idaho voters approved the amendment to the Idaho State Constitution allowing for the establishment, by legislative statute, of the Idaho Lottery Commission and an Idaho Lottery staff.

The Idaho Lottery Act became law on January 1, 1989 and 200 days later, an industry record for starting a new Lottery, the first Idaho Match 3 Scratch™ ticket was sold to billionaire tycoon J.R. Simplot on July 19, 1989.  On July 19, 1989 alone, the Lottery sold more than 840,000 tickets.  Since then $1.7 billion in Lottery products have been sold in Idaho.

During the first year of operations, the Idaho Lottery introduced and sold 11 different Scratch™ games. From start-up, it took four years before the Idaho Lottery introduced its 52nd Scratch™ game.  The Lottery introduced 53 new ScratchTM games during Fiscal Year 2008 alone.  In 19 years, 765 different Scratch™ games have been introduced to Idaho Lottery players.

At the end of the first year, the Idaho Lottery sales amount and returned their first dividend check to the people of Idaho worth $17.225 million.  At the end of their 19th year in the summer of 2008, the Idaho Lottery returned a dividend check that was more than double that first year’s when they returned a record $34.75 million to public schools and buildings.

Games and Winners

When the Lottery began in 1989, it did so without the benefit of a multi-state lotto-style game.  On February 1, 1990, the Idaho Lottery offered its first lotto-style ticket, Idaho Super Lotto/Lotto America.  In the first five minutes of sales, 1,000 tickets were sold.  The first hour saw the Lottery collect $4,301. The first jackpot was $2,000,000.  Later that month, Sue Jones of Boise became the Idaho Lottery’s first millionaire by winning $2,000,000.

Over the years, the Lottery has been involved with many multi-state games including Tri-West which evolved into Wild Card in 1998.  SuperLotto became Powerball in 1992 and Martha Gibbons was the first big jackpot winner, claiming an annuity worth $22.1 million.

In June 1985, Pam Hiatt won $87.5 million on Powerball and remained the largest jackpot winner for a decade until Brad Duke won $220.3 million on Powerball in May 2005 after purchasing his ticket from the exact same Jacksons where Hiatt had done 10 years before.

In 2000, the Idaho Lottery introduced its daily Lotto game, Idaho Pick 3.

In 2007, the Idaho Lottery its first new lotto style game since Pick 3 with the introduction of Hot Lotto.  Later that same year, the Lottery introduced its first seven-figure raffle game, the Idaho $1,000,000 Raffle which sold out 250,000 tickets in only 36 days.

During the Lottery’s 10th Anniversary in 1999, they introduced their first $10 Scratch™ ticket, the 10th Anniversary game.  For their 15th Anniversary, the Idaho Lottery introduced their first $15 Scratch™ game, 150 Grand, a game that featured a top prize of $150,000 – the most ever offered for an instant ticket in Idaho at the time.  For the 20th Anniversary, in keeping with tradition, the Idaho Lottery is introducing a $20 Scratch™ Game, the 20th Anniversary, Have a 200 Grand Time game.

Bingo was introduced in August of 1994 as the first $3 game ever offered by the Idaho Lottery. The first $5 game was Monte Carlo which debuted in November 1995. The first $7 game was none other than Super Lucky 7’s, which hit retail locations in July 2001.

So what about some of those other notable games?  Rapid Refund has been making annual appearances in the Lottery lineup since 2000.  The very first Cashword game debuted as $3 ticket in October 1999.  And the first Slingo game did not show up until January 2003.

And the Lottery has given away a few vehicles over the years.  The first was Bucks and Trucks back during the first anniversary celebration of the in July 1990. And since then, they’ve given away a few more trucks, a Viper, and even a couple of Hummer’s!

There have been other notable scratch games throughout the years, like the Holiday season lineup for 2005 which included the first scented game – Candy Cane Cash, and the first advent calendar style game Holiday Countdown.  During the fall of 2008, the Lottery introduced the first of its kind anywhere in North America when the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games Scratch™ ticket debuted. This unique ticket allowed players the opportunity to return a portion of their winnings to support the games in Idaho in February 2009.

The Big Picture

Since beginning in 1989, the Idaho Lottery has created a dozen multi-millionaires, 22 millionaires and 47 players have won more than $250,000.  All totaled, the Lottery has awarded more than $1 billion in prizes to players, paid over $100 million in commissions to retailers, and returned over $402.3 million to public schools and buildings in Idaho