Gadget Daddy: Upgrade of Florida Lottery app hits the jackpot - The Ledger

There is a lot to like about this update. Foremost is its ability to check tickets for winners.

Back in March, I wrote about the Florida Lottery app for smartphones. It concluded with this shortcoming: "As noted previously, the app has a lot of useful information. It also has current numbers for all online games. But it has this drawback: The app still lists Lucky Money as an online game. It was replaced by Jackpot Triple Play a year ago, which isn’t listed. (Note to Florida Lottery officials: Fix this, will you? A year and Jackpot Triple Play still hasn’t made it? Seriously?)"

I am happy to report that last month, a new version of the app became available. I wish the March nudging could take some credit, but I expect the revision — which is a hefty one — was already in the works. There is a lot to like about this update.

Foremost is its ability to check tickets for winners. Yes, it's a feature that has long been lacking. And just like those little readers in the stores that let ticket holders check their own tickets, the cellphone edition works the same way: It will either scan the bar code on an online ticket, or scan the box with all the dots in it on the scratch-off tickets.

The app will check if the ticket is a winner, and will report back with how much was won. Keep in mind that the new drawing numbers aren't posted immediately after the drawings, and the results might appear on the lottery's webpage (www.fllottery.com) before they are released to the app-scanner. Still, it's a lot easier to go through several tickets using the bar code scanner than by looking up drawing dates one by one.

The app's home page is much more attractive and useful than the previous version. It shows the current winning numbers for the 10 online games and the estimated jackpot and next drawing date for Florida Lotto, MegaMillions and PowerBall.

Players can learn how many jackpot prize tickets remain for every scratch-off game, along with odds of winning the jackpot and smaller prizes.

Using the "My Favorites" section, players can create playslips for any online game. They can save their favorite numbers, and then call up that playslip to show to the lottery retailer, which can then scan the smartphone's screen to generate the tickets — just as if the playslip had been used. That same process can also be used with lottery vending machines. It's a very cool feature.

The app is pretty much self explanatory. The best way to figure out what it can do is to sit around and play with it for a bit. It does a lot — and a lot of that has been a long time coming.

The app, dare we say, is a real winner.

Lonnie Brown can be reached at LedgerDatabase@aol.com.

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Gadget Daddy: Upgrade of Florida Lottery app hits the jackpot - The Ledger
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