Giant jackpot choice starts Sunday

Starting Sunday, lottery players in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware can choose their gigantic-jackpot game.

Powerball sales will start Jan. 31 in New Jersey, according to an official announcement today.

Jersey already offers the other major multistate game, Mega Millions, which has a $121 million jackpot on the line tonight.

Pennsylvania and Delaware have been promoters of Powerball, which will draw numbers for its $76 million grand prize tomorrow night.

As previously announced, those two states will add Mega Millions on Sunday, hoping - along with more than a dozen other states - to raise even more revenue from lottery games.

Powerball is currently played in 31 states, Mega Millions in a dozen others.

Maryland and New York also plan to add Powerball on Sunday.

Players will see four drawings a week: Mega Millions on Tuesdays and Fridays, Powerball on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The two games are very similar. Players have to match five numbers (1 to 59 for Powerball, 1 to 56 for Mega Millions) plus a Powerball (1 to 39) or Mega Ball (1 to 46) to win the progressive jackpot.

Powerball, though, has a $1 Power Play option, which can multiply a prize by up to 5.

The Power Play automatically boosts the second-place prize - normally $200,000 - to $1 million, regardless of what Power Play number is drawn. Second place in Mega Millions is $250,000.

The odds of winning either jackpot with a single ticket are vanishingly small, though a bit worse with Powerball (1 in 195 million) than Mega Millions (1 in 176 million).

For more lottery information, go to www.philly.com/philly/news/lottery, www.megamillions.com or www.powerball.com.