Montana
Coming up: 'Quarter Million Monday' drawing
Somebody is going to kick off the holiday season with a much bigger budget for gifts, thanks to the Montana Lottery.
As part of this year’s Montana Millionaire, one of the 500,000 tickets sold on November 1st will be drawn on Monday, December 2nd, with a prize of $250,000.
The winning ticket is scheduled to be announced at 10 a.m. on Monday.
The “Quarter Million Monday” drawing this year replaced the former “Early Bird” drawings.
The drawing for the four one-million dollar grand prizes will be on Thursday, December 26, 2024.
The winner of Monday’s $250,000 remains eligible for one of the $1M grand prizes.
(NOVEMBER 1, 2024) Tickets for the annual “Montana Millionaire” went on sale at 5:30 a.m. on Friday, November 1, 2024 – and they are selling fast.
Early-risers get Montana Millionaire tickets
This year, there are 500,000 tickets available. Montana Lottery said at 8:24 a.m. that all 500,000 tickets have been sold: “Hold onto your hats (and your tickets), now! Montana Millionaire has officially SOLD OUT in less than 3 hours. We hope you were able to participate in this year’s raffle.”
Pictures on social media show lines of people snaking through the aisles of convenience stores, and in some cases long lines extending out the doors of stores.
During last year’s sale, all 380,000 tickets available sold within five hours.
Last year, there were three one-million dollar prizes – and one of them was sold at the Heidelberg Lounge on Division Road in Great Falls.
Blair Michel of the Heidelberg said on Thursday, “I feel like somebody winning locally, and especially here, makes it just a little bit more exciting and makes it feel like it’s within reach for people.”
Excitement about sales of Montana Millionaire tickets
The lounge opened at 5:30 a.m. on Friday to serve up coffee and donuts for people who didn’t want to risk missing out on a chance to buy a ticket – and the parking lot was full even before then.
There are several changes for this year’s Montana Millionaire.
SUMMARY OF CHANGES
- Four $1M grand prizes
- 500,000 available tickets
- ‘Quarter-Million Monday’
- More instant wins
The agency is adding another million-dollar grand prize this year, bringing the total to four. This comes after last year’s increase from two to three $1M prizes.
The number of tickets sold this year will increase to 500,000 – up from 380,000 sold in 2023. Tickets will still cost $20. Last year, all tickets sold within five hours.
The Montana Lottery is also adding a “Quarter Million Monday” drawing for $250,000 on Monday, December 2, 2024; this will replace the former “Early Bird” drawings.
There will also be more instant win prizes: 2,300 tickets of $500 instant wins, and 4,500 tickets of $100 instant wins.
Montana Millionaire tickets will be sold at all Montana Lottery retailers, including most convenience stores across the state.
The drawing for the grand prizes will be on Thursday, December 26, 2024.
PREVIOUS WINNERS
The winning $1M tickets in 2023 and where they were sold:
- 299951 – Town Pump of Kalispell (2910 US 93 South)
- 315800 – Town & Country Supply (Hilltop Road in Billings)
- 346589 – Heidelberg Lounge (Division Road in Great Falls)
Previous million-dollar winners over the years include three from Butte, two from Great Falls, four from Billings, two from Columbia Falls, and one each from Winnett, East Helena, and Laurel. In 2022, no one claimed one of the two Montana Millionaire prizes, so the money went into the State General Fund.
Due to a change in legislation, the Montana Lottery is no longer allowed to release the names of Montana Millionaire winners without their explicit consent.
WHO CAN BUY TICKETS – AND HOW MANY?
The Montana Lottery has provided responses to several frequently-asked questions:
Why don’t you limit Montana Millionaire to Montana residents only?
The Montana Lottery is available to everyone of legal age, whether resident or visitor. Limiting the sale of a product to some people while excluding others is discrimination. It would also be contrary to our mission and place an undue burden on our retailers.Why don’t you limit the number of Montana Millionaire tickets someone can buy?
The mission of the Montana Lottery is to maximize revenue for the State of Montana. Our proceeds fund Montana’s STEM/Healthcare Scholarship Program and contribute to the General Fund. To limit sales of our products would be contrary to our mission and result in less positive impact for the residents of Montana.Why don’t you offer Montana Millionaire or another raffle game more than once per year?
The Montana Lottery has a large selection of games available every day of the year. We believe Montana Millionaire is special and successful because it’s exclusive. While it is not impossible that we may introduce other raffle games in the future, currently we have made this strategic business decision based on detailed market research and analysis.
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions about the Montana Lottery, here is the contact information:
Email: montanalottery@mt.gov
Phone: 406-444-5825
Address: Montana Lottery, 2525 North Montana Avenue, Helena, Montana, 59601-0598
WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO?
Money generated from the lottery is used in several ways.
“The lottery exists to generate revenue for the State of Montana. Most sales go towards paying prizes, operations, and essentially whatever is left at the end of that is what goes back to the state. That’s determined by state legislative action and the beneficiary, as we call it, has changed a number of times,” Montana Lottery content manager Dan Iverson told MTN News several months ago.
Currently, the first $2.25 million goes to the Montana Stem/Healthcare Scholarship Program, operated by the Office Of The Commissioner Of Higher Education and the Montana University System. Whatever is left goes to the state’s general fund, which is dictated by the legislature.
WASHINGTON ― Montana Republican Senate nominee Kurt Alme, who previously served as his state’s U.S. attorney, cut a plea deal in 2020 that allowed a tribal police officer who sexually abused a 6-year-old girl to serve less than a year in prison and avoid being registered as a sex offender.
Alme, who has President Donald Trump’s backing in his bid for Senate, served as Montana’s U.S. attorney in two stints. Trump appointed him both times; Alme served in the role from September 2017 through December 2020, and then again from March 2025 through March 2026.
Alme oversaw the case of Mychal Thomas Damon, who was indicted in June 2019 by a grand jury on one count of abusive sexual contact with an individual under 12, which carries a maximum punishment of a lifetime in prison, a $250,000 fine and no less than five years to a lifetime of supervised release. The average sentence for this crime is less severe, but still significant: 62 months in prison, no fine and 143 months of supervised release, based on an analysis of 2025 data provided by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Damon, 28, had admitted he touched the 6-year-old’s genitals. But in February 2020, Alme’s office filed a plea deal in his case that reduced his charge to felony child abuse.
The changes in the plea deal raised the alleged age of the victim from below 12 to below 14, stripped out the language of sexual intent and moved the offense out of the federal sex crime framework, meaning Damon would no longer be required to register as a sex offender. It jointly recommended Damon be sentenced to the time he’d already served of 324 days, and required only a sex offender evaluation. Alme’s name appears on the bottom of the document, along with a signature by his assistant U.S. attorney, Cassady Adams.
In June, Alme filed a sentencing memorandum that described Damon’s conduct, which included details of him touching the child’s vagina with skin-to-skin contact, and the adverse effect it had on her mental health. Local reporting at the time said the victim had told a therapist “Mychal touched me” and hurt her by putting his fingers in her “hoo hoo.”
Ten days later, Alme announced Damon was being sentenced to time served of 324 days and two years of supervised release. As of June 2026, Damon is not listed in the national sex offender registry or in Montana’s Sexual or Violent Offender Registry.
It’s not clear why Alme reduced the charges against Damon as significantly as he did. During part of his tenure as U.S. attorney, his office declined 64% of sexual assault cases. He conceded in a 2019 interview that this “is something that has to be worked on,” and noted that a lot of these cases are declined due to “weak or insufficient evidence.”
Asked what happened in Damon’s case, an Alme campaign spokesman on Thursday lashed out at unnamed Democrats for trying to make him look bad.
“Kurt’s liberal opponents are twisting the facts to manufacture a fake narrative that exploits crimes against women and children,” said Alme’s spokesperson. “Department of Justice policy required defendants to plead to the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence. Kurt strongly supported the Multi-Disciplinary Teams on our Native American reservations, led by his office, to support investigations of crimes against children and to support victims.”
His spokesperson also pushed back on the idea that Alme unreasonably declined a large number of sexual assault cases during his tenure as U.S. attorney.
“Kurt’s office prosecuted every viable sexual abuse felony referred to it and pursued the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence,” the spokesperson said. “Many ‘declined’ cases were to allow more appropriate tribal prosecutions ― they were not dropped. Kurt will bring his years of experience prosecuting criminals and working with the Sexual Assault Response Teams on our Native American reservations to the U.S. Senate to strengthen investigations, support victims, and better protect women and children.”
The campaign pointed HuffPost to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office that found the most common reason for U.S. attorney’s offices to decline sexual abuse cases referred in from Indian country was “weak or insufficient admissible evidence.” It also highlighted statements of support for Alme in an October 2025 press release by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), when he celebrated Alme being confirmed as U.S. attorney.
Alme is currently running for Daines’ Senate seat, and Daines went out of his way to clear the path for him. In a stunning and orchestrated maneuver, the two-term senator in March abruptly withdrew from reelection as Alme filed to run for his seat, minutes before the state’s filing period closed. Daines’ last-minute change-up was an effort to block potential Democrats or any major Republican challenger from jumping into an open Senate race.
Alme is taking on Democrat Alani Bankhead and independent candidate Seth Bodnar in the November election. Bankhead and Bodner have been duking it out for weeks, with each appealing to different factions of the Democratic party and calling on the other to drop out.
Bankhead, a retired Air Force officer, unexpectedly won the Democratic primary earlier this month, boosted by grassroots supporters and more than $2.5 million in outside money from a progressive veterans’ PAC. But Bodnar, a former University of Montana president who did not appear on the primary ballot, has bipartisan endorsements from prominent establishment figures, including former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot. He’s also significantly outraised Bankhead and Alme.
This Senate seat is rated “solid Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook’s Political Report, meaning Alme is well-positioned to win the general election. But this race would be more competitive if Bodner and Alme were going head to head, without Bankhead in the running.
Where Khloe Kardashian Stands With Ex French Montana More Than 10 Years After Breakup
French Montana is done keeping up with reality TV.
In fact, he only agreed to appear on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Kourtney & Khloé Take the Hamptons over a decade ago as a favor to then-girlfriend Khloe Kardashian.
“She said to get on the show,” he exclusively told E! News at the BET Awards on June 28. “And I got on the show. Shout out to Khloe.”
The “Ever Since U Left Me” rapper, who split with Kardashian in December 2014 after eight months of dating, said the experience was “fun” because her family kept it real.
“They filmed their real life,” he continued. “And we were part of something together that one time. So it felt great. It didn’t feel like work because they film what they do everyday.”
As for his future in reality TV, the 41-year-old said those days are over, shutting down any prospective offers with a simple, “Negative.”
Although the “Unforgettable” artist—whose real name is Karim Kharbouch—may not be returning to television anytime soon, he has no problem hanging out with his ex-girlfriend these days.
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