The New Year's Raffle game offers players the chance to win a total of $6.5 million in prizes and the draw is just around the corner. When the winning numbers are drawn on New Year's Eve, 555 lucky people are guaranteed to walk away winners! Chances of winning the top prizes of $1 million are the best odds ever offered by the California Lottery to win a million bucks.

The New Year’s Eve Raffle is easy to play. Players simply buy their tickets. There are no play slips to complete or numbers to choose. Players pay $20 to their retailer and tickets containing five chances to win are printed from lottery terminals in numeric order. Raffle tickets are available at all lottery retailers statewide (www.calottery.com/locations). Unlike typical lottery drawings, tickets available for the Raffle are limited. Tickets are on sale now at the over 19,000 Lottery retailers in the state and are available until December 30, 2007 or until sold out, whichever comes first.

When the winning numbers are drawn on New Year's Eve, the Million Dollar Raffle will guarantee 555 winners. Over $6.5 million in prizes will be given away; five grand prizes of $1 million each, 50 winners of $10,000 each and 500 winners of $2008 each!

After the drawing on December 31, all winning Raffle numbers will be available on the lottery’s website at www.calottery.com and Lottery retailers will also be able to electronically scan Raffle tickets to identify winning tickets.

Over 95 cents of every Lottery dollar is returned to the community in the form of contributions to education, prizes and retail commissions. The California Lottery contributes at least 34 cents of every dollar that players spend on Lottery products to public education and returns more than 50 percent of sales to players in the form of prizes. Since its inception in 1985, the Lottery has contributed more than $19.6 billion to California schools out of total sales of more than $53.25 billion. Retailers win too, earning $3.4 billion in compensation since 1985.