The California Lottery – A Complete CA Lottery Guide for 2026
Welcome to the full guide to the California Lottery here at GamblingCalifornia.com. The California Lottery is the most accessible form of gambling in the state, with tickets sold at over 23,000 licensed retailers from the Oregon border to San Diego, and it has been part of daily life here for over 40 years. Whether you are a casual scratcher buyer who picks one up at the gas station, a Powerball player who only buys when the jackpot gets huge, or someone who plays SuperLotto Plus or Fantasy 5 on a regular schedule, this page covers what you need to know about California’s state lottery in 2026.
The California Lottery is a state-run agency, so it is fundamentally different from the offshore casinos and sportsbooks I cover elsewhere on this site. There is no gray area, no offshore alternative, no question about whether it is legal. The lottery is operated by the State of California, the games are regulated by state law, and a chunk of every ticket sale goes to fund California public schools. The official site is at calottery.com, and that is where you go for the most up-to-date jackpot info, winning numbers, and game details. This page is meant to give you the bigger picture, with all the games explained, the history covered, the odds laid out honestly, and the practical info you need as a player.
Is the California Lottery Legal?
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.
A Brief History of the California Lottery
The California Lottery is one of the younger state lotteries in the country. While other states had been running lotteries for decades, California voters had repeatedly rejected lottery proposals throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The push that finally succeeded came in 1984, when supporters put Proposition 37 on the November ballot. The campaign emphasized that lottery revenues would fund public education, which was a politically powerful argument at a time when California schools were struggling with budget issues following the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978.
Prop 37 passed in November 1984 with 57.9 percent of the vote, and the California State Lottery Commission was established to run the lottery. The agency moved fast, launching the first scratch ticket games in October 1985, less than a year after voter approval. The first big jackpot game, called Lotto, launched in 1986 and was the predecessor to today’s SuperLotto Plus. The early years saw enormous public interest, with first-day ticket sales setting national records and the state quickly becoming one of the largest lottery markets in the country.
Over the years, the California Lottery has added games and adjusted the existing ones. Powerball joined the California offerings in 2013, more than two decades after the multi-state game first launched in 1992. Mega Millions added California in 2005. Hot Spot, the keno-style game, was launched in 2003. The lottery has gone through multiple branding refreshes, expanded its retailer network, and launched the Second Chance program that lets players enter losing tickets in additional drawings. As of 2026, the California Lottery is celebrating its 40th anniversary and remains one of the largest state lotteries in the country.
How the California Lottery Funds Public Education
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.
Where to Buy California Lottery Tickets
California Lottery tickets are sold at approximately 23,000 licensed retailers throughout the state. These include convenience stores, gas stations, grocery stores, liquor stores, pharmacies, and various other small businesses. If you live in California, there is almost certainly a lottery retailer within a few miles of your home. The official retailer locator is on the California Lottery’s website if you need to find a specific location.
To buy a ticket, you walk into a retailer, ask for the game and ticket type you want, and pay in cash or with a debit card. Credit cards are typically not accepted for lottery purchases due to state regulations. You can either pick your own numbers (using a paper playslip from the counter) or ask for a Quick Pick where the terminal randomly generates numbers for you. Scratchers are pre-printed and you just buy the specific game you want.
Tickets must be purchased in California from a California-licensed retailer. You cannot legally buy California Lottery tickets from outside the state, you cannot buy them online from your home, and you cannot have someone else buy them for you and then transfer them to you (although you can certainly give a ticket to someone after you buy it). If you want a ticket, you have to physically be at a California retailer and physically buy the ticket.
Draw Games Offered by the California Lottery
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.
Powerball in California
Powerball is the bigger of the two multi-state jackpot games, with starting jackpots typically around $20 million and the potential to grow into the hundreds of millions or even over a billion. California joined Powerball in 2013, so we have been playing it for over a decade now. Tickets cost $2 per play, plus an extra $1 if you add the Power Play option that multiplies non-jackpot winnings.
How it works: you pick five numbers between 1 and 69, plus one Powerball number between 1 and 26. You can pick your own numbers or use Quick Pick. Drawings happen Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at 7:59 p.m. Pacific time, with ticket sales cutting off shortly before the draw. To win the jackpot, you need to match all five white balls plus the Powerball. The odds of hitting the jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338, which is genuinely terrible odds, but the prize when someone hits it is life-changing money.
What makes Powerball worth playing? The huge jackpots, mostly. The odds of winning any prize at all are about 1 in 24.87, which is not bad. Most of the smaller prizes (matching just the Powerball, for example) pay $4, so you are not getting rich on the smaller wins. But when the jackpot rolls and gets up over $500 million or a billion, the expected value briefly tilts in a more reasonable direction and the entertainment value of having a ticket goes up. For more details on Powerball, you can check the official California Lottery Powerball page.
Mega Millions in California
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.
SuperLotto Plus
SuperLotto Plus is California’s own state lottery game, the direct descendant of the original Lotto game that launched in 1986. It is California-exclusive, meaning the jackpot stays in state and the entire prize pool comes from California ticket sales. Tickets cost $1 per play.
To play, you pick five numbers between 1 and 47 plus one Mega number between 1 and 27. Drawings happen Wednesdays and Saturdays at 7:45 p.m. Pacific time. The starting jackpot is $7 million, which builds with rollovers and can reach impressive levels (the all-time record SuperLotto Plus jackpot is over $193 million, hit in 2002).
The odds of winning the SuperLotto Plus jackpot are 1 in 41,416,353. That is much better than Powerball or Mega Millions, although still very long. The overall odds of winning any SuperLotto Plus prize are about 1 in 23. The lower-tier prizes for matching some numbers without the Mega ball pay smaller amounts than the multi-state games, but the better jackpot odds make SuperLotto Plus the more reasonable bet if you are choosing between game types.
You can also add the optional Megaplier feature for an extra $1 per play, which multiplies non-jackpot winnings by 2x to 10x. This is similar to the Power Play option in Powerball. The official SuperLotto Plus page has the latest jackpot and winning numbers.
Fantasy 5
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.
Daily 3 and Daily 4
Daily 3 and Daily 4 are the simplest California draw games. They are pick-three and pick-four games where you choose a string of digits and bet on whether your numbers come up in some specified order.
Daily 3 tickets cost $1 per play. You pick three digits from 0 to 9 (each between 0-9 independently). Drawings happen twice a day, with a midday draw at 1:00 p.m. and an evening draw at 6:30 p.m. Pacific time. The basic bet is “Straight,” where you have to match all three digits in exact order. The odds for a Straight bet are 1 in 1,000 and the prize is $500 (a 500x return). There are also “Box” bets that pay smaller amounts but win if your digits come up in any order, and various other bet types like Front Pair and Back Pair that have shorter odds and smaller prizes.
Daily 4 works the same way but with four digits. Tickets are $1 per play, drawings are once daily at 6:30 p.m. The basic Straight bet has odds of 1 in 10,000 with a top prize of $5,000.
These games are popular with players who like the daily action and the relatively simple structure. The odds are mathematically straightforward (no complex parimutuel pools or jackpot tiers), and you know exactly what you are playing for. The expected return is similar to other lottery games (around 50 to 60 cents on the dollar over time), so they are not great bets in pure value terms, but they have an audience of regular players who buy them as part of a daily routine.
Daily Derby
Daily Derby is one of the more unique California Lottery games. It is themed around horse racing, with 12 horses each given a name (Gorgeous George, Lucky Star, etc.). To play, you pick the first, second, and third place finishers from the 12 horses, and you also pick a winning race time from a list of options. Tickets cost $2 per play.
Drawings happen daily at 6:30 p.m. Pacific time. The top prize is awarded for picking the correct top three finishers in the correct order plus the correct race time. The odds of winning the top prize are 1 in 1,320,000. Smaller prizes are awarded for partial matches.
The top prize starts at $50,000 and grows by $25,000 each draw without a winner, up to a $250,000 cap. When the top prize hits $250,000 and rolls without a winner, the cap stays at $250,000 until someone wins. Daily Derby has a smaller player base than the other California games but it has loyal fans who like the horse racing theme and the structured format.
Hot Spot
Hot Spot is California’s keno-style game, with drawings every four minutes from early morning until late at night. You pick how many numbers (called “spots”) you want to play, between 1 and 10, and pick those numbers from a field of 1 to 80. The lottery then draws 20 numbers, and you win based on how many of your picks match.
Tickets cost $1 minimum per play, with the option to bet $2, $5, $10, or $20 for proportionally larger prizes. Hot Spot has a “Bulls-Eye” optional add-on for an extra dollar that adds an extra winning condition based on which of the 20 drawn numbers gets randomly selected as the Bulls-Eye number.
The top prizes vary based on how many spots you play and how much you wager. Playing 10 spots and matching all 10 (1 in 8.9 million odds) pays $300,000 on a $1 ticket. The other prize tiers pay smaller amounts based on how many you matched. Hot Spot is mostly played at retailers that have monitors showing the live draws, like bars, restaurants, and bowling alleys. It is a different kind of lottery experience from the once-or-twice-daily draws, since you can play, find out, and play again all within a few minutes.
Scratchers and How They Work
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.
Second Chance Program
The Second Chance program is one of the better features of the California Lottery and is the closest thing California has to online lottery participation. Here is how it works. You buy a draw game ticket or Scratcher, and if it is a non-winning ticket (or a ticket that won a small prize you have already claimed), you can enter the ticket into Second Chance drawings for additional prize opportunities.
To enter, you scan the ticket using the California Lottery mobile app or enter the ticket numbers manually on the California Lottery website. Each ticket can be entered into Second Chance once. Second Chance drawings are held regularly across multiple games, with prizes ranging from cash to vacation packages to special-event tickets.
Second Chance has been around since 2007 and has grown into a major engagement tool for the lottery. Even if your ticket loses in the actual draw, you have a real chance at winning something through Second Chance entries. There is no extra cost beyond the original ticket purchase, so it is essentially free additional drawings on tickets you already bought. To participate, you have to register an account on the California Lottery website or app.
How to Claim California Lottery Prizes
The process for claiming a California Lottery prize depends on the size of the prize.
Prizes of $599 or less can be claimed at any California Lottery retailer. You hand them the ticket, they scan it, and they pay you in cash. This is the most common claim type and the easiest.
Prizes of $600 to $999 can be claimed at most retailers, but some smaller stores may not carry enough cash. You can also claim at any of the nine California Lottery District Offices located in major metropolitan areas, or by mail. You will receive a Form W-2G from the lottery for tax purposes.
Prizes of $1,000 or more must be claimed at a California Lottery District Office or by mail to lottery headquarters. You cannot claim large prizes at retail. The District Offices are located in Sacramento, Hayward, Fresno, San Bernardino, Santa Fe Springs, San Diego, Van Nuys, Santa Ana, and Sylmar. You will need to fill out a claim form, provide identification, and submit the original winning ticket. Major prizes (especially jackpots) require additional verification and may take several weeks to process.
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).
California Lottery Winners and Biggest Jackpots
California has produced some of the biggest lottery wins in US history thanks to the size of the state’s population and ticket sales. Here are some of the biggest moments.
The largest single winning lottery ticket in US history was sold in California. A $2.04 billion Powerball ticket was sold at Joe’s Service Center in Altadena in November 2022. The winner, Edwin Castro, claimed the prize as a single payment of approximately $997 million before taxes. That win remains the all-time record for any individual lottery prize anywhere.
California has also produced multiple other Powerball and Mega Millions wins over $1 billion since joining those games. A $1.765 billion Powerball jackpot was hit in California in October 2023. A $1.08 billion Powerball jackpot was hit in Los Angeles in July 2023. A $1.602 billion Mega Millions jackpot was won in California in August 2023. These mega-jackpots are increasingly common as both games have evolved their pricing and matrix structures over the years.
For state-specific games, the SuperLotto Plus record stands at $193 million from a March 2002 drawing, when the prize was split between three winning tickets. The SuperLotto Plus jackpot has approached this level a few times since but has not exceeded it.
Taxes on California Lottery Winnings
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.
Can You Play the California Lottery Online?
The short answer is no, not really. California has not authorized online lottery sales, and you cannot legally buy California Lottery tickets from a residential computer or phone. This is despite the fact that many other states have moved to online lottery sales, courier services, and subscription models over the past decade.
What you can do online with the California Lottery includes the following:
Check winning numbers on the official website or mobile app.
Scan tickets using the mobile app’s Check-A-Ticket feature to see if you have won.
Enter Second Chance drawings by scanning losing tickets.
Find retailer locations using the store locator.
View promotion details and special events.
What you cannot do online is actually purchase tickets. The California Lottery has been studying the possibility of authorizing online sales for years, but has not moved forward. The retailer network would lose a significant chunk of revenue if online sales were authorized, and the political pushback from retailers (along with concerns about underage purchases and problem gambling) has kept California a holdout. There is some discussion that this could change in the future, but as of 2026, no proposal is moving forward.
Some lottery courier services exist that will technically buy tickets on your behalf if you are physically located in California, but these are operating in regulatory gray area and the California Lottery does not officially endorse or authorize any of them.
The California Lottery Mobile App
The official California Lottery mobile app is available for iPhone and Android, and it is genuinely useful even if you cannot buy tickets through it. The app’s main features include:
Ticket scanning using your phone’s camera. Point it at a Scratcher or draw game ticket and the app tells you if you won. This is much faster than checking numbers manually.
Winning numbers for all California Lottery games, available almost immediately after each draw.
Jackpot updates showing current Powerball, Mega Millions, SuperLotto Plus, and other game jackpots.
Second Chance entries directly from the app, by scanning your eligible losing tickets.
Retailer locator to find the closest place to buy tickets.
Game odds and information for each California Lottery game.
The app is free and has been around for several years, with regular updates. It is the most convenient way to interact with the California Lottery beyond actually buying tickets, and the ticket-scanning feature alone is worth installing it.
Responsible Play and Lottery Odds Reality Check
Let me be straight about something a lot of lottery websites do not say out loud: the lottery is among the worst bets in gambling on a pure expected value basis. The state lottery typically returns about 50 to 65 cents on the dollar to players over time, depending on the game. Compare that to a typical slot machine at 88 to 95 percent return, or basic strategy blackjack at over 99 percent return. From a pure value perspective, the lottery is one of the most expensive ways to gamble.
That does not mean nobody should play. The lottery sells dreams, and there is a real entertainment value in spending $5 on a Powerball ticket and fantasizing for two days about what you would do with $400 million. That is fine, and lots of people enjoy the lottery as essentially a $5 movie ticket for an extended daydream. The problem is when people start treating the lottery as an investment, a retirement plan, or a regular expense rather than entertainment.
A couple of useful odds for perspective: you are roughly 250 times more likely to be struck by lightning at some point in your lifetime than to win a single Powerball jackpot. You are about 3,500 times more likely to die in a car accident this year than to win the Mega Millions jackpot. The lottery is a fun thing to play occasionally for the dream value. It is not a path to wealth.
The state lottery has its own responsible play resources at calottery.com/responsible-play, which is worth checking out if you find yourself spending more on tickets than you would like.
5 FAQs About the California Lottery
1. Do I need to be a California resident to play the California Lottery?
No. You only need to be physically present in California to buy a ticket. Tourists from other states can absolutely buy California Lottery tickets and win prizes. You also do not have to be a US citizen, although non-citizens may face more complicated tax and prize-claiming processes for major wins.
2. What happens if I lose my winning ticket?
If you lose a winning ticket, you almost certainly cannot claim the prize. The California Lottery requires the original physical ticket to claim prizes. There is no system for claiming based on a photo or copy. The lesson here is to sign the back of any potentially winning ticket immediately after you check it, and store it somewhere safe until you can claim. Some players make photocopies of valuable tickets as well, although the photocopy itself is not enough to claim.
3. How long do I have to claim a winning ticket?
Draw game tickets must be claimed within one year of the drawing date. Scratcher tickets must be claimed within 180 days of the end of the game (which is announced when the lottery decides to end a particular Scratcher). Tickets that are not claimed within these timeframes become invalid, and the prize money goes into the lottery’s unclaimed prize pool, which gets redirected to education funding.
4. Can I remain anonymous if I win a major California Lottery prize?
No, not in the traditional sense. California state law requires the lottery to disclose winners’ names, prize amounts, draw dates, and retailer information. Your home address and phone number remain private, but your name becomes public record. Some winners have used legal trusts to claim prizes, which provides some privacy protection but does not allow full anonymity. If you have a major win, talk to an attorney about your options before claiming.
5. Are California Lottery games actually random?
Yes. California Lottery draws are conducted under tight security with multiple verification procedures, witnessed by independent auditors. The mechanical ball machines used for SuperLotto Plus and similar games are tested regularly, the random number generators used for Daily 3 and Hot Spot are certified, and the Scratchers print runs are randomly distributed. There is no skill involved in lottery games, no patterns to exploit, and no system for predicting numbers. Anyone selling you a “guaranteed lottery system” is selling you something that does not work.
One last thing. The California Lottery is set up as entertainment with the side benefit of funding schools, and that is the right way to think about it. A few bucks on a Powerball ticket when the jackpot is huge, or an occasional Scratcher at the gas station, is harmless fun for almost anybody. The trouble starts when lottery spending stops feeling like entertainment and starts feeling like a habit you cannot quite break. If you find yourself buying tickets you cannot afford, hiding lottery purchases from people in your life, or thinking the next big win will solve real money problems, those are signs to pause. The California Office of Problem Gambling has free, confidential support 24/7 at 1-800-GAMBLER or online at problemgambling.ca.gov. The next jackpot will roll without you, and that is fine.