Mass. Low Number License Plate Lottery Opens

The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles is holding its annual low-number license plate lottery.

The Registry is accepting applications starting Friday. The deadline is August 11.

Registrar Celia Blue notes that the lowest number available this year is 351, which is the number of cities and towns in the state. She says she'd like to see applicants from all 351 municipalities. A total of 160 plates are available.

Some of the other plates up for grabs include 535, 7000, 8001, 4T, Q6, X8 and Y11.

Blue says the Registry typically gets about 6,000 applications per year.

The low-number plates used to be handed out by politicians as favors to the well-connected, but the Registry started the lottery in 1997 to make their distribution more fair.