Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? In Ohio, You Just Need Luck, and a Covid Vaccine.

With virus vaccinations on the decline nationally, states are offering big incentives, even $1 million prizes. Will it work?

After the state of Ohio announced with great fanfare that residents who got at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine would be eligible to win a hefty $1 million, Jack Pepper saw something remarkable happen at his sleepy rural vaccination clinic. For the first time in a while, there was a line at the door. Officials, who had been strategizing about how they might give away extra doses, were suddenly operating at full capacity. “I think we did close to 400 people in four hours,” said Mr. Pepper, the administrator for the health department in Athens County, a county of about 65,000 in southeastern Ohio. “Anywhere I go, people are joking with me, ‘Hey, when am I going to win my million dollars?’”