Nevada Residents Leave State in Pursuit of the Mega Millions Lottery Tickets

By Jessica Whitehouse,
Editor at online-gambling.com

Jessica Whitehouse Editor at online-gambling.com

Jessica Whitehouse is a content expert and editor from Santa Monica, California. At online-gambling.com, she focuses on roulette, blackjack reviews, lottery, and casino payments. Whitehouse is also our leading go-to expert in online gambling in South Africa. In addition, she provides the photo materials for most articles on the site.

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Last updated: July 30, 2022

The Nevada Constitution forbids lotteries within the state. The law clearly states that lotteries are unauthorized within the state and that no lottery tickets should be sold to or bought by state residents. This is despite Nevada being home to gaming hotspots like Las Vegas and Reno.

The state still allows some limited lotteries. However, these lotteries can only be conducted by charitable organizations. States such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Utah also forbid the buying and selling of lottery tickets.

Nevertheless, Nevada residents are not deterred. They continue to travel out of the state to try their luck at winning a lottery. They drive to border towns in Arizona to try their luck at the $1.337 billion Mega millions jackpot. The residents, though bitter about the high price of gasoline, still drive out of the state to purchase their tickets. Some drive over 40 miles from Las Vegas to the Lotto store at Primm in Nipton, California, to purchase their tickets.

In an interview, one of the residents of Nevada, Ricardo Pasadas, complained bitterly about having to drive all the way to Primm thrice in the last twenty years to purchase a lottery ticket. He groaned about the high price of gas. However, he seemed undeterred by that.

Nevada Residents Continue to Try Their Luck in Lottery

Despite the restricting laws and high gasoline prices, Nevada residents continue to purchase tickets in the hope of winning. This time, though, the winning ticket of the historic Mega Millions lottery wasn’t sold in Arizona or California. It was sold in Illinois.

It is not hard to wonder whether all of Nevada residents’ hassles are worth it, considering that every individual has a slim chance of ever winning the lottery. The odds are so poor that they are said to be one in 302.5 million.

In an interview, Alan M. Feldman, who was a former MGM Resorts International Executive and a Distinguished Fellow at Responsible Gambling UNLV, said, “It’s all about the fantasy of what if I won?”

Feldman Posits That the Odds of Winning the Lottery Are 50-50

The former MGM executive Feldman explained that even though Nevada’s residents could get better odds at casinos back home, they ignored the odds of winning. He explained that they dreamt of winning large sums of money, which was why sales increased when the prize money also increased.

Feldman continued to share the thoughts of a mathematician he had listened to several years ago. According to him, when explaining the odds of winning the lottery, the mathematician had said the odds could as well be 50-50. Even though many people believed it was almost impossible to win the lottery, it wasn’t ludicrous to think one could win.

He recalled that the meeting was held in Las Vegas in the 1990s. During this period, the Federal Gambling Commission traveled around the country to speak on gambling. They organized sessions with experts like Feldman’s mathematician to speak on gambling.

Feldman himself seems to share the belief of the mathematician alongside the host of others who believe that buying a lottery ticket has 50-50 odds. He confessed to purchasing lottery tickets whenever he was in states that allowed them to be sold.