Virginia established its online lottery in 2020. At the time, that made it the sixth state to offer a full-featured iLottery including instant games, though Rhode Island followed suit soon after to bring the total to seven.
The VA online lottery product is known as MyGameRoom. Aside from instant games and online purchases of draw tickets, it provides various other services such as subscriptions, notifications of new ticket releases, and online bonus games for certain physical tickets.
Online lotteries have been one of the most popular avenues for gambling expansion in recent years. That’s because it’s usually very simple to authorize in states that already have a conventional lottery. In Virginia’s case, all that needed to be done was removing one paragraph of the criminal code and adding internet sales to the list of responsibilities of the state’s Lottery Board.
When online lotteries include instant games, as Virginia’s does, they provide an experience very similar to online casino gaming. While Virginians wait for fully legal iGaming to come to their state, the Virginia Lottery, now offers them the next best thing.
One big advantage of online lotteries relative to physical tickets is that you get to enjoy signup bonuses and other promotions. Make sure you use our VA lottery promo code PLAYTEN when signing up to get the best value for your dollar.
Lottery | VA Online Lottery |
---|---|
VA Lottery Promo Code | PLAYTEN |
Sign Up Bonus | 10 Free Games of Blackjack Doubler |
Deposit Bonus (minimum $10 deposit) | 50% Deposit Match up to $100 and 10 Free Games |
Last Updated: | March 2021 |
Signing up for an online lottery site is much the same as any other online gambling product. The lottery needs to be able to establish your identity and location, and make sure you’re legally allowed to play and aren’t opening more than one account.
Follow our exclusive link and you’ll be taken to the lottery’s signup page. It’s a relatively easy process from there. All you’ll need is to provide the following information:
Naturally, you’ll have to be at least 18 years of age to play. You also have to be physically in the state of Virginia at the time, though residency isn’t required. The website and mobile app both use geolocation to establish this.
To play through your browser, you’ll need to download a special geolocation plugin. This is a one-time download however, and not a major hassle: just follow the on-screen prompts.
As well as its website, the Virginia lottery has a mobile app so you can play on the go. The VA lottery app is available for both iOS and Android. Better still, you can use both the website and the mobile app using the same login and account balance.
This will allow you access to all the same games you can enjoy through the Virginia lottery website.
The app doesn’t just serve as a portal for online play, either. It also provides a whole suite of features to make your experience of retail lottery products easier and more enjoyable.
Here are some of the app’s most helpful features:
Just like when you buy tickets, the VA online lottery gives you a choice between entering big draws or playing instant games with smaller top prizes. The draws are the same ones you would buy tickets for, while the instant games have a different product lineup and some unique mechanics not found on scratch-off tickets.
Through the VA lottery website, you can play the following draw games without needing to buy a physical ticket:
Each gives you the option of playing 3, 5 or 10 sets of numbers per draw, and the ability to choose your own numbers or take random sets with Easy Pick.
If you want to play other draws, you’ll need a physical ticket. However, the mobile app can make life easier for you here. You can choose the number of tickets you want and pick your numbers (or choose Easy Pick) using the app, then just scan a QR code at your local retailer to print out the tickets.
Instant lottery games come with the same range of ticket costs and payouts as the scratch tickets you pick up at the supermarket or gas station. In some cases, the gameplay is similar too, except that you click the symbols to reveal them instead of scratching.
Other titles have more elaborate gameplay involving sounds and animation. Many of these bear more resemblance to video slots than they do to lottery tickets, and so provide a decent substitute while we wait for Virginia online casinos to arrive.
There are typically around two or three dozen games available on the site at a time, with some seasonal titles rotating in and out. Some popular, permanent titles include:
If you’re looking for instant gratification but prefer to play your lucky numbers than hunt for matching symbols, you have a couple of options. These also have larger top prizes than the regular instant games, though of course they’re correspondingly more difficult to win.
Quick 6 is the equivalent of a 6-number draw lottery, but with instant results. Tickets range from $0.05 to $5 and the top prize is $250,000.
Instant Keno Multiplier resembles the casino game of Keno. The stakes range for this game is $0.25 to $20 and the top prize of $500,000 is the highest available among instant games.
The lottery itself is a bit over 30 years old. Virginians voted to create it in 1987, and the first tickets went on sale in September the following year.
The online lottery was established in 2020 through Sentate Bill 922, signed by Gov. Ralph Northam at the beginning of March. The new site and app launched four months later in July.
The lottery is available to all adults 18 years and older. You don’t have to be a resident of the state to play, but the online lottery is only available to play when you’re physically located within the state’s borders.
The Virginia Lottery is committed to helping you play responsibly. To that end, it offers you a variety of tools to decide up front how much you want to play, or if you want to play at all. After logging in to the website or app, go to General Settings. There you’ll find the following options:
The easiest way to reach the lottery for questions or concerns is by phone: (804) 692-7777.
You can also get in touch through an email form, either on the website or using the app.
The majority of the VA lottery instant online games have a RTP of 87%, meaning you’ll win an average of 87 cents per dollar you bet. Special seasonal games tend to have lower returns, often 85%, while the maximum at the moment is 89% for Jungle Tumble Jackpots.
Draw games work the same way and feature the same odds when played online as with physical tickets. The return for these is considerably worse than instant games, though of course the top prizes are much larger. We can’t give an exact percentage, because the nature of draws is that the odds depend on the current size of the jackpot and number of entries. However, it’s rarely much better than around 60%.
Since 1999, the Virginia Lottery turns 100% of its profits over to the Virginia Department of Education, to be spent on whatever education-related programs the department deems suitable. Prior to that, lottery proceeds instead went into the state’s general fund.
Virginia doesn’t have full online gambling yet, but may in future. In the meantime, construction is underway on the state’s first retail casinos. Furthermore, VA mobile sportsbooks launched in 2021, not long after the online lottery, and provide a different sort of gambling experience for those who enjoy sports.