The California Lottery: A Complete Guide for 2026

Yes, completely. The California Lottery is operated by the California State Lottery Commission, which is a state agency. The lottery has been authorized by the California Constitution since 1984 when voters approved Proposition 37 with about 58 percent of the vote. The first lottery games (Scratchers) launched on October 3, 1985, and the lottery has been running continuously ever since. There are no legal questions, no court challenges, and no tribal exclusivity issues with the state lottery. It is one of the few gambling categories in California where the legal status is straightforward.

The minimum age to buy California Lottery tickets is 18. Tickets can only be purchased in person at licensed retailers located within California. You cannot buy California Lottery tickets online from a residential computer, you cannot buy them by mail, and you cannot have someone outside California buy them for you. The state has not legalized online lottery sales, which I will get into more in the online section below. For more on the lottery’s official regulations, you can check the California Lottery’s About page. For the broader legal framework, see our California gambling laws page.

This is the part of the lottery story that does not get talked about enough. When voters approved Proposition 37 in 1984, the deal was that lottery revenues would supplement (not replace) state funding for public education. The structure required by law is that at least 87 percent of lottery revenues must go to either prizes (which pays out to winners) or to education funding. Operating expenses are capped at 13 percent.

In practice, the California Lottery distributes around 95 percent of its revenue to either prizes or education, with prize payouts being the bigger slice. The education funding piece typically runs around $2 billion per year, distributed to K-12 schools, community colleges, the California State University system, and the University of California. The funds are allocated based on average daily attendance, so larger school districts get more money. Individual schools use the funds for whatever they decide, with most going to instructional materials, technology, and other supplemental programs.

For perspective, California spends well over $100 billion per year on K-12 education, so the lottery’s $2 billion contribution is not the main funding source. It is supplemental, as Prop 37 required. But it adds up over time. Since the lottery launched in 1985, it has provided over $43 billion in cumulative funding to California public education. So when you buy a Scratcher or a Powerball ticket, you are contributing to school funding whether you win or not. That is part of how the lottery is structured to work.

The California Lottery currently offers eight draw games plus a wide variety of Scratcher products. The draw games range from the massive multi-state jackpot games (Powerball and Mega Millions) down to twice-daily quick games (Daily 3 and Daily 4). Each one has its own draw schedule, ticket cost, and prize structure. Below I will go through each game in detail.

Mega Millions is the other multi-state jackpot game, and California has been part of it since 2005. The structure is similar to Powerball. Tickets are $5 per play (the price increased from $2 in 2025 with a major game overhaul), and you pick five numbers between 1 and 70 plus one Mega Ball number between 1 and 24.

Drawings happen Tuesdays and Fridays at 8:00 p.m. Pacific time. The starting jackpot is currently $50 million minimum (raised from $20 million as part of the 2025 changes), with rollovers building the jackpot from there. Like Powerball, Mega Millions can build into the hundreds of millions when nobody hits for several drawings. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 290,472,336, which is slightly better than Powerball but still extremely long.

The 2025 Mega Millions changes also included a built-in multiplier (the Megaplier was eliminated and replaced with an automatic 2x to 10x multiplier on non-jackpot prizes, included in the $5 ticket price) and improved second-tier prizes. The minimum non-jackpot prize is now $10 instead of $2. The redesigned game is meant to compete more directly with Powerball and create a richer secondary prize structure for casual players.

Powerball and Mega Millions are similar enough that most California players just pick whichever has the bigger jackpot at any given moment. There is no real strategic reason to favor one over the other if you are just buying tickets when the prize gets huge. Check the official Mega Millions page for current jackpot info.

Fantasy 5 is one of my personal favorites among the California draw games because the odds are dramatically better than the jackpot games, even though the prizes are smaller. Tickets cost $1 per play and drawings happen daily at 6:30 p.m. Pacific time, seven days a week.

To play, you pick five numbers between 1 and 39 (no separate bonus ball). The top prize is awarded for matching all five numbers, and there are smaller prizes for matching three or four. The top prize is parimutuel, meaning it depends on how many tickets are sold and how many winners share the prize, but it typically ranges from $50,000 to a few hundred thousand dollars. The current Fantasy 5 record is over $1 million, which is rare but does happen when there are multiple consecutive rollovers without a winner.

The odds of winning the Fantasy 5 jackpot are 1 in 575,757, which is by far the best jackpot odds of any California draw game. The overall odds of winning any prize are about 1 in 9, so almost 10 percent of tickets win something (though usually small amounts). For someone who wants the realistic chance of hitting a meaningful prize without playing the lottery as essentially a tax, Fantasy 5 is the most reasonable game on the menu. Check the Fantasy 5 page for current top prize info.

Scratchers (the California Lottery uses the trademarked term Scratchers) are the instant win tickets you have probably bought from a gas station counter at some point. The California Lottery launched Scratchers as its very first product in 1985, and they remain one of the lottery’s most popular and profitable categories.

Scratchers come in a huge variety of price points and themes. The cheapest are $1 tickets with relatively small top prizes ($5,000 to $10,000 typically). The most expensive are $30 tickets with top prizes of $20 million or more. Each Scratcher game has its own theme (anything from “$50 Frenzy” to themed games tied to characters or holidays), its own ticket price, and its own prize structure.

The California Lottery prints a fixed number of tickets for each Scratcher game, with the prizes randomly distributed throughout the print run. Once all the top prizes have been claimed, the California Lottery may end the game (although smaller prizes typically remain unclaimed for some time after the top prizes are gone). The official California Lottery website maintains a list of currently active Scratcher games with information about how many top prizes remain unclaimed, which is useful information if you want to play games that still have major prizes available.

The odds of winning vary by game, but Scratchers as a category typically have overall odds of about 1 in 3 to 1 in 4 of winning some prize on any individual ticket (although most wins are small, often just the price of the ticket). The odds of hitting the top prize on any specific ticket are typically in the 1 in 1 million to 1 in 5 million range, depending on the game.

Important to know: California requires that lottery winners’ names, prize amounts, draw dates, and the retailer where the ticket was sold be made public. You cannot claim California Lottery prizes anonymously, unlike in some other states. Some winners have set up legal trusts or LLCs to claim prizes through, but the underlying winner’s name still becomes part of the public record.

You have one year from the draw date to claim a draw game prize and 180 days from the end of game date to claim a Scratchers prize. Unclaimed prizes go into a pool that is distributed back to education funding (in addition to the standard education contribution from ticket sales).

This is something a lot of California players are happy to learn: the State of California does not tax California Lottery winnings. That is right, your state lottery prize is exempt from California state income tax. This is unusual among states, since most states do tax lottery winnings as ordinary income.

However, California Lottery winnings are still subject to federal income tax. The IRS treats lottery winnings as ordinary income, which means they get taxed at your marginal federal rate. For large prizes, that means the top federal rate of 37 percent. The California Lottery automatically withholds 24 percent of any prize over $5,000 for federal tax purposes, but the actual tax owed could be higher depending on your total income for the year.

If you win a major prize and choose the lump sum cash option (which most jackpot winners do), the tax bill in the year you receive the money is enormous. A $200 million jackpot taken as a lump sum (which would actually pay around $100 million cash) could end up with $37 million or more in federal taxes. If you win a major prize, you should absolutely consult with both an accountant and a financial advisor before claiming.

One small benefit: California’s no-state-tax rule on lottery winnings applies only to the California Lottery itself. If you win a multi-state lottery (Powerball or Mega Millions) or another state’s lottery, those winnings are still subject to whatever taxes apply.