Ohio Vax-a-Million registration page gets 25 million views on first day

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - Ohio’s Vax-a-Million lottery generated international media attention and plenty of discussion inside the state’s borders leading up to the launch of its sign-up page.

On the first day the drawing’s registration page opened, it already had 25 million page views by 4:30 p.m., according to state officials. That resulted in “hundreds of thousands” of sign-ups to win one of the five $1 million prizes, the Ohio Lottery and Department of Health announced in a joint news release Tuesday.

The official number of entries wasn’t released Tuesday.

That will happen next Monday after the draw period ends, entries are verified, and duplicates are removed.

Callers tied up the phone lines, too. State officials said they fielded more than 60,000 calls throughout the day, and those numbers were released before the call center closed. It’s open daily from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Anyone can call 1-833-4-ASK-ODH (1-833-427-5634) to register by phone. Your odds of winning are the same whether you enter via phone or online. If you enter more than once, your duplicate entry or entries will be deleted.

Some 13abc viewers told us they had problems with the website Tuesday. While there were no consistent or widespread outages formally reported, the state did give tips to get through if any resident is having issues:

• Refresh your page. If you visited the website before it went live, you may need to refresh the page to load the current website.
• Clear your cache in your browsing history. If you visited the website before it went live, your browser may be loading a previous version of the website. Clearing your cache will force your web browser to load the current version of the website.
• Update your web browser. Older web browsers may have difficulty loading ohiovaxamillion.com and its security features designed to keep your personal information safe. Updating your web browser to the newest version will not only help you load ohiovaxamillion.com properly, but it will also give you the most up to date security features to protect your computer or device, as well as your personal information.

On the website, adults can sign up to win the $1 million lotteries or enter to win the full-ride scholarships available to kids ages 12-17.

It will ask for basic pieces of personal information, including your age, address, email address, phone number, and where you got the vaccine. It also makes you give permission to the Ohio Department of Health to verify your vaccine information.

The website does not ask someone to create an account or enter credit card information. If you see any websites like that, close the page. It is a scam.

The website also has a page dedicated to frequently asked questions, has contact and support information, and will eventually post the list of winners.

Those will be announced starting Wednesday, May 26 at 7:29 p.m. in a live statewide drawing. You can watch each of the five drawings on 13abc.

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