Vax-A-Million Sweepstakes

Ohio has announced the next winners of its vaccine lottery incentive, including an adult who will take home $1 million and a child who will receive a full college scholarship.

The Ohio Lottery Commission has drawn the next set of names in the "Vax-A-Million" sweepstakes and the state is preparing to unveil the second winner of the $1M jackpot along with the winner of the college scholarship sweepstakes.

More than 2.7 million Ohioans have signed up for the state’s Vax-A-Million drawings. However, there are questions as to whether information Ohioans gave to be eligible for that drawing could be subject to public records laws.

In this week's episode of Snollygoster, Ohio's politics podcast from WOSU, hosts Mike Thompson and Steve Brown discuss the chances that legal sports gambling will win big in the Buckeye state.

The state says a southwestern Ohio woman is the first winner of Ohio’s $1 million Vax-a-Million vaccination incentive prize. The state also says a Dayton-area teen is the first winner of the program’s full-ride college scholarship.

Just as the first of five drawings for a million dollars and for a college scholarship is taking place on Monday, a Republican state representative who’s been critical of Gov. Mike DeWine’s mask mandate and COVID shutdowns has sponsored a bill to ban the Vax-A-Million shot lottery.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said the state is seeing an increase in vaccinations since the announcement of the million-dollar lottery.

One teenage girl was fatally shot and several other teens wounded Saturday night when after-hours party turned violent in Columbus’ Bicentennial Park. Today on All Sides with Ann Fisher, more violence erupts in the city and elsewhere, and a look at how state leaders prepare for the Vax-A-Million drawing Wednesday as one lawmaker seeks to shut it down.

The Ohio Department of Health says it tracked an increase in the vaccination rate since the creation of the $1 million sweepstakes.

Gov. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) is banking on the million-dollar lottery to ramp up the number of people who get vaccinated in Ohio. But will a lottery incentivize people who are on the fence about the COVID-19 vaccine? Experts in the field of economics and psychology sound off on how lotteries impact social behavior.