National Lotto Games Are Dropping Illinois over Budget Concerns
I'm not sure if you know about this or not, but recently a vote was held in Puerto Rico to make it America's 51st state; the vote was unanimous- the citizens who were eligible to vote voted "yes" for statehood.
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that Puerto Rico will indeed become an official state, there's a lot of hoop jumping to make it official; but a friend of mine posed an interesting question about the topic just the other day.
He asked, "If Puerto Rico becomes a state, that will make 51 states. Since we like round numbers, we wanna keep it at 50, so one state has to go. Which state should we kick out and why?"
If it were up to the Powerball and Mega Millions games, it would be Illinois. In fact, according to the Chicago Sun Times, they've already dropped the Land of Lincoln. At the end of June, residents of Illinois will no longer be able to play both popular lottery games.
This comes after the Multi-State Lottery Association mulled for two years over concerns about Illinois' budget crisis. They obviously have some major concerns about how the money is being paid out to winners, and even more importantly, where the money from the lotto sales are going. Winners weren't going to get paid and neither were Illinois schools.
As someone who doesn't play the lottery often, I'm not too sad to see it go. It's not like anyone from Illinois wins anyway, and it's kind of an ongoing joke now that people don't play because they know they'll never see their money, even if they do win.
Are you sad to see it go?
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