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Lottery Officials Hoping New Home Makeover Scratch-Off Game Will Be A Hit

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- It's a first for the Pennsylvania Lottery: an instant game now on sale where you can win a home makeover.

The lottery thinks $100,000 Home Makeover will be a hit, and scratch-off games have become the lottery's bread and butter.

It turns out, 70 percent of lottery revenue now comes from instant games.

At the Quick Stop in Lawrenceville, the place is buzzing since they learned last week they sold someone a Cash 5 ticket worth $1.4 million.

But this week, the Pennsylvania Lottery's newest instant game is attracting interest.

"A lot of people are asking which one is the new one?" said Paul Patel from Quick Stop.

There are 10 top prizes of $100,000. And if you're not a winner, you can enter a second chance drawing for an opportunity to win two home makeovers worth $100,000 or two room makeovers worth $10,000.

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The Pennsylvania Lottery has never given away home makeovers before.

"This kind of game is very exciting to somebody who's been wanting to do some work around the house, and we think it'll be very popular this summer," said Gary Miller from the Pennsylvania Lottery.

With another recently launched game, Escape to Margaritaville, you can win trips to a resort in Florida.

"We do put a lot of research in our game development, and we listen to our players' feedback," said Miller.

With good reason, the first instant game was sold in state in 1975. But scratch-off games now account for 70 percent of the lottery's revenue. That's $2.6 billion this year.

So the lottery works to keep people interested, by releasing new games almost every month.

"We pay very close attention to what our players want, so we work hard to keep the instant game line up fresh," said Miller.

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