It was created by the Pennsylvania General Assembly on August 26, 1971;[1] two months later, Henry Kaplan was appointed as its first executive director.

[citation needed] For the 2009–2010 fiscal year, approximately $3.065 billion in gross revenue was acquired through proceeds and interest.

In 2017, following a revenue decrease exceeding $75 million for the fiscal year 2016–2017, Pennsylvania passed a gaming expansion bill that authorized the sale of online lottery products.

[3] Governor Tom Wolf's budget plan for 2018 said that he and the state would use new revenues to "re-establish a $75 million reserve fund".

[citation needed] Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed a gaming expansion bill on October 30, 2017, making it possible for the lottery to offer Keno.

The suite of products, known as the Pennsylvania iLottery, includes a variety of scratch-off games that reveal lottery ticket results online.

The lottery has continued to offer these games, as this style of scratch-off tickets are considered sufficiently different from online casino slot machines in other jurisdictions with similar products.

Similar to keno, the virtual sports games are displayed on monitors at select locations and run every few minutes.

On November 19, 2019, the Pennsylvania Lottery began offering Derby Cash, a virtual horse racing game.

On January 31, 2010, Pennsylvania was among the lotteries that added the "other" game, in this case Mega Millions, on the cross-sell expansion date.

Eventually, a second-prize Mega Millions ticket with Megaplier activated was guaranteed to win $1,000,000, regardless of the multiplier drawn.

[14] The Pennsylvania Lottery has offered several games which would later be discontinued due to low sales and/or relative obsolescence.

Players won the jackpot, which was paid in 21 annual installments (with no cash option), by matching the first six numbers drawn.

On March 26, 1996, Pennsylvania's first cash option was introduced; WCL players were now required when purchasing tickets (instead of after winning, as in present-day Cash4Life, Mega Millions, or Powerball) to choose between receiving a jackpot prize in the 21-payment annuity or in a lump sum.

If a player matched 7 of the 11 drawn, they won a jackpot that was paid in 26 installments; unlike the 2009-2010 revival of Super 7, there was no cash option.

Keystone Jackpot was played by selecting 6 of 33 numbers in the first pool, and a seventh, blue, Key Ball from another field of 33.

The prize structure went as follows:[21] Keystone Jackpot underwent no changes during its history; its final drawing was held September 5, 1998, being replaced by Super 6.

Super 6 was one of the first jackpot games in North America where players received automatic "Quick Picks", instead of being allowed to choose all of their numbers.

Matching all 6 numbers in a game, won a jackpot, paid either in 26 installments or, if selected when playing, in a lump sum.

The prize pool was arranged as follows:[22] Overall odds: 1 in 48.5 Its drawings were initially held on Wednesdays and Saturdays, later moving to Tuesdays and Fridays shortly after Pennsylvania joined the multi state Powerball game in 2002.

These plans were put on hold by Lottery officials the previous month, and Double Play ultimately never materialized.

Pennsylvania was among 23 jurisdictions participating in the launch of the Monopoly Millionaires' Club (MMC) multistate drawing game on October 19, 2014.

Later, this was updated to the winning amount being highlighted with parentheses at the top or bottom of the play area, in order, but not necessarily consecutively; for example, a $100 winner would be denoted (1)(0)(0).

[citation needed] On February 28, 2017, the Pennsylvania Lottery began offering "Fast Play" games.

[28] The host of the Pennsylvania Lottery drawings, Nick Perry, and seven others participated in a plot to "rig" The Daily Number, colloquially known as the "Triple Six Fix."

Perry, in conjunction with Peter and Jack Maragos, Jerry Hammer, and five other men either were convicted or entered plea-bargains for their involvement.

The special show aired on: All Pennsylvania Lottery drawings are supervised by Harrisburg-based Zelenkofske Axelrod.

Previous auditors of the drawings include the firms KPMG Hernwick, Boyer & Ritter, Wooton & Kneisley, the Huber Group, and Akryoyd and Associates.

[30] Portions of the Commonwealth, particularly in the Northern Tier, are unable to see the drawings because they are served by television markets in New York (e.g. the Bradford region, which has some stations from Erie, but not WJET).

Regions such as these can see the Mega Millions and Powerball drawings on the national cable and satellite feed of WGN America.