Here's how to purchase Mega Millions, Powerball tickets online

Don’t want to leave your house when you realize you forgot to buy tickets for the big drawing?

Now you don’t have to.

Pennsylvania Lottery officials on Friday announced that Mega Millions and Powerball tickets can now be purchased online.

The purchases can be made through PA Lottery’s iLottery platform. Online purchases will see the same features available to players who purchase tickets at retail locations — buying multiple tickets, buying tickets up to 13 weeks in advance, choosing their own numbers or selecting the quick-pick option.

“Selling lottery online is a big part of our effort to appeal to new customers and meet our players where they already are, which is online,” executive director Drew Svitko said in a news release.

Here are some other things to know about purchasing tickets online:

• Anyone new to the iLottery system will have to sign up for an account and deposit funds into it in order to make a purchase. New account-holders will have to submit proof of identity and age and, per standard lottery rules, must be 18 or older.

• Players can control their accounts by setting time, deposit and spending limits.

• Players must be located within state borders to play and win monetary prizes.

• Purchases can be made through PA Lottery’s official app.

PA Lottery launched its iLottery platform in June 2018, featuring various games but not including scratch-offs and other ticket games.

In July 2019, a judge struck down an injunction request made by a group of Pennsylvania casino operators seeking to shut down the iLottery platform. The operators argued the newly launched iLottery online games too closely mimicked how casinos planned to roll out online gaming, but the judge ruled the operators had not established they will suffer a certain loss of business because of the competition, PennLive reported.