Your dog featured on a lottery ticket

VIRGINIA - A new Virginia Lottery Scratcher game gives players a chance to unleash their marvelous mutts’ star potential. The Virginia's Lucky Dog game not only gives players a chance to get their paws on prizes up to $10,000, but also includes a contest in which 20 Virginia dogs will be featured on future game tickets.

The Virginia's Lucky Dog game, which launched April 14, features photos of dogs owned by Virginia Lottery employees. Beginning that same day, the "virtual dog park" opened, in which Virginia Lottery players can upload photos of their four-legged pals. Twenty winners will be featured on Virginia's Lucky Dog II tickets, which will go on sale later this year.

You don't need to leave the house to visit the virtual dog park – it's located at www.valottery.com/dogpark. The winning Commonwealth's canines will be announced June 30, 2009. Pooch-portraits can be entered through May 26.

As part of this game's promotion, the Virginia Lottery is sponsoring the popular Jack Russell Terrier races at the Virginia Gold Cup on May 2 at Great Meadow in The Plains, Virginia. The Lottery will be giving away Virginia's Lucky Dog tickets and merchandise to lucky race attendees.

Nearly 95 cents of each dollar spent on the Virginia Lottery by players goes back to the Commonwealth in the form of contributions to education, prizes and retailer commissions. Since 1999, all Virginia Lottery profits have been designated solely to K-12 public school education in the Commonwealth. In that time, the Lottery has turned over more than $4 billion for Virginia's public schools. The latest annual profits of $455 million currently represent about 6 percent of state funding for public education in Virginia. In 20 years, the Lottery has sold more than $20 billion in tickets, awarded more than $1 billion in retailer commissions and paid more than $10.9 billion in prizes to players.

For more information, visit www.valottery.com. Please play responsibly.