This week's big news was The Big Game, the $325 million lottery jackpot shared by three winners. That inspired us to take a look at lottery searches on Lycos.

Lottery is consistently one of the most popular search words, although we don't include it on the Lycos 50 because it is a generic term. Last week, lottery was more popular than weather or jobs. The word lotto, with one-quarter as many searches, was more popular than auctions or sports.

Based on searches from first three months of 2002, here are the top 20 lotteries searched online. We've different spellings, so both ca lottery and california lotto count for California Lottery.

1) California
2) Powerball
3) Florida
4) Texas
5) New York
6) Pennsylvania
7) Georgia
8) Big Game
9) New Jersey
10) Lotto 6/49 (Canada)

11) United Kingdom
12) Virginia
13) Illinois
14) Michigan
15) Massachusetts
16) Maryland
17) Ohio
18) Indiana
19) Kentucky
20) Minnesota

While California's lottery is the most-searched online on a week-to-week basis, it is Powerball that has spent the most time on the Lycos 50. The multi-state jackpot has spent 11 weeks on the Lycos 50 in total, peaking at #1 in late August of 2001 when the jackpot reached $295 million.

The California Lottery has spent five weeks on the Lycos 50, peaking at #5 in late June of 2001. The Big Game has spent four weeks on the list, peaking at #4 currently.

The funny thing is, this is probably the last hurrah for The Big Game. That's because the lotto is changing its name next month, when New York and Ohio (and in September, Washington) join current players Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia. The new lottery will be called Mega Millions.

TOMORROW: Kicking tuchus, Israeli style.