The Maine Lottery is urging residents not to get too carried away by the hype surrounding the Powerball jackpot that has topped $1 billion.
Marketing manager Michael Boardman says it's important to stress the importance of playing "responsibly" and not going overboard on ticket purchases.
He says it only takes one ticket to play, and notes that multiple tickets don't make a huge difference when the odds are 1 in nearly 300 million.
A legislative committee launched an investigation amid concerns that the Maine Lottery is exploiting poor people. A report by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting estimated that welfare recipients spent hundreds of millions on lottery tickets between 2010 and 2013.
Copyright AP - Associated Press
