Wow this was one stinker of a raffle...one $1M top prize, four $15,000 second prizes!  That was one heck of a big gulf between first and second!  Whatever happened to the $100,000 second prize?  I have only played raffles on 3 occasions (twice in IL and once in MI).  All 3 were non winners.  So given that, I have decided I would rather throw $20 bucks to an online jackpot game like PB or MM or a big lotto jackpot than a one shot chance raffle.  And I definitely wouldn't play one that only offered $15,000 as a second prize.  I guess times must really be tough up there in potatoe land.

Isn't That Scary Chick from Idaho"It would be nice if she won the million dollars!

Heck at least Idaho is going pay all prizes as one lump sum, even the Million Dollars! Now that's the way it should be done!

Not like NJ, those A**holes are going to rip the people off by paying the top 3 prizes as annuities!

The (3) $2,000,000 Annuity prize will be paid in 20 annual gross installments of $100,000 each.

That's Absolutely Chicken**it if anything can be called that!

It's actually a very good raffle, considering that tckets are only $10 and the population (player base) is small.  They could hae done it like Delaware, and only offered $250,000 as the top prize, but instead they did it right and made the top prize $1M.

Idaho doesn't have nearly the resources of a big state like Pennsylvania, yet they had an extremely successful raffle, selling out all the tickets before the drawing.  Nicely done.

Thanks MaddMike51. It would have been nice to win something but I didn't. I only bought one ticket this time and it was kind of a funky number. It was 111114. When I saw that I was like those numbers are never going to be drawn and I was right. lol.

You can never tell if a number is good or bad before the drawing.You just have to wait and see if your number is drawn.Your time will come.Just keep playing and think positive.

I'd agree, especially with a raffle.  There is no raffle number better than any other, because it is a single-number drawing, sort of like the Mega Ball being drawn in Mega Millions.  They don't draw each of the digits separately.

I'd actually say that your number was "good" because it is in the middle part of the range, and not at one of the extremes.

Yeah Delaware is the most chicken**it of them all in offering only 250,000.00 dollars for 10 bucks for it's raffle! I don't like the fact that Delaware is only going to give the one top prize of 250K from all the money it's going to collect! The first state is the most money grubbing state I have seen in the raffle and lottery game industry out there! I don't play raffles in any state period!

Did you pay any attention to the odds? For the $20 you'd rather spend on MM, you could get 2 tickets for the raffle. With MM you'd have a 1 in 195,235 chance of winning $250,000 vs a 1 in 125,000 chance of winning a full million. With MM you'd have a 1 in 34,453 chance of winning $10,000 vs a 1 in 31,250 chance of winning $15,000. With MM you'd have about a 1 in 350 chance of winning $150 vs a 1 in 250 chance of winning $300. For all of those prizes the raffle ofered a better chance of winning between 50% and 300% more money. With MM you'd have roughly a 1 in 20 chance of winning $10 or less vs a 1 in 80 chance of winning $50. That's only 1/4 as likely, but the prize is 5 to 15 times as much. On top of all that, the raffle also offered a 1 in 834 chance of winning $100. MM doesn't even have a prize that conveniently fits that category.

The only thing MM offers for the same risk is the extremely small chance of winning the jackpot. If that's your preference, that's fine, but any objective assessment makes the raffle a better deal. I hope you make better judgements on risk and reward when you offer financial advice.

I personally love the raffles every year.  I wish we had the equivalent of El Gordo in the USA, but I'll take the closest thing to it.

Wouldn't it be great if one of the winners was an LP member?   Good luck to our Idaho friends!

Playing IDaho Lotto (Powerball, Hotlotto, & Wildcard) for several years now.  But never in the Raffle, although the lady at the counter always asks "Raffle ticket?" maybe next year I'll buy won.LOL

My lotto playing life is completely separate from my financial advice life; the two are not intertwined.  So although I would rather have any money I wager on the lottery give me the potential for the biggest bang/return on said wager, I tend to recommend a slightly more conservative investing strategies/portfolios for my clients based on their time horizon and risk tolerance profile (i.e. if their profile indicates that they fit an aggressive growth profile, I might recommend a growth portfolio).  Doing this has enabled my clients to still accomplish their investment goals while moderating the volatility in their portfolios (and I might add that I haven't had a single one of my clients to complain about their investments).

My philosophy on the lottery is that if you are going to play it, you might as well go for the gusto and give yourself a chance at the big jackpot.  I don't care about the odds of winning...if I am lucky enough to be that 1 out of 195 million or 1 out of 176 million, then why would I care about the 195M or 176M when I was lucky enough to be the ONE?!!!  Besides, the better odds of winning those raffle games and even the scratch-if games has not enabled me to win either one.  My total winnings in the 3 raffle games I played is ZERO...so I spent $60 bucks and got nothing in return.  Of course, I can't tell you how much I have wagered over the years on Powerball, MegaMillions, or any of the state lotteries I have played like Illinois Lotto, Michigan Lotto, Indiana Lotto, Florida Lotto (it happened to be the first lotto ticket I bought when I was stationed in Orlando many moons ago!), Texas Lotto, and California SuperLotto, but I can tell you that I have won some small prizes from each of them (California SuperLotto win has been the biggest at $200).  I also happen to be a dreamer, and a multi million dollar win is what my dreams are based on, not a mere million before taxes or even a few thousand.  So I will continue to use sound logic in my professional life, but I will allow myself to dream in my lotto playing life.  I want to join those Mexican, Asian, and African immigrants who were lucky enough to wager a buck or two on some QPs and as luck would have it their numbers were drawn for multi million jackpot prizes that drastically changed their lives. 

My dream is to continue to work so that I can help families get properly protected, get out of debt, and achieve financial independence.  I also dream of traveling first class everywhere I go, be it by automobile or airplane.  I dream of doing great business ventures with my brother.  This can all happen whether I win the lottery or not, but it would be a bit more satisfying to me to actually win.  That way I can say I achieve my career goals AND I also happen to be a Jackpot millionaire (who will have plenty to either pass on to my heirs or to the charitable organizations of my choosing).  I will be the Jackpot winner that you only hear of immediately after the big win...no name your riches to rags lottery sad story here!

Well I guess I have rambled on long enough...Happy New Year!  2009 is mine to shine!