I am considering buying a couple of these raffle tickets. Yet, I am a little hesitant because the odds of winning anything at all are 1:982. Do you guys think thats a bad bet?

The odds are that way because there are no small prizes. You either win a big prize or nothing at all. 

There are 4 one million dollar prizes.

Five $100,000 prizes.

And 500 $1,000 prizes.

There will only be 500,000 tickets sold.

Sounds like it's worth a shot to me.

Good luck!

From the Illinois lottery website:

Your Best Shot at a Million!

Since only 500,000 tickets will be sold, your odds of winning a million dollars have never been better!

• 4 Prizes of $1,000,000, odds are 1 in 125,000!
• 5 prizes of $100,000 each, odds are 1 in 100,000!
• 500 prizes of $1,000 each, odds of 1 in 1000!

THAT’S 509 TOTAL AVAILABLE PRIZES WITH OVERALL ODDS OF 1 IN 982!

________________________________________________________

I look at it this way, 500,000 tickets will be sold, and by the rules above, 509 prizes will be won. Let's see, 500,000 and 509. So, when the raffle is over, let's imagine two stacks of tickets, winners and losers.

Hmm. 509 winners and 499, 491 losers. Gee, which stack is my ticket most likely to wind up n?

I know the raffles are the "best chance" at winning $1,000,000, but "relative to the buy in", are they? If there was a number game with a $20 price tag would you play it?

I bought one ticket for the first Illinois raffle and was off by over 1,500 numbers in either direction. Whivh is probably exactly what's supposed to happen.

Good luck to anyone who plays but I think the raffles are just another gold mine for the lotteries and not a good deal for the players at all. Like I said, 509 winners and 499,491 losers.

Man, I was feeling pretty good for a while there Coin Toss! Then you had to come up with all them dad blame facts and figures!

I got somebody getting me a ticket up there and now I'm gonna... well... have another shot of Jack I guess.

Seriously though, the way I see it, it's a lot better shot at a million than $20 put on any other game, right?

does it  have better chance at a million than scratchers?  i think so.

I don't know if IL  20-dollar cards have a scratching chance of 1 in even a million at  $1,000,000

Hello everyone. First time poster, long time lurker. I’ve played the Illinois raffle games for a couple years and never won anything. What’s interesting and frustrating at the same time is checking your raffle number when the winning numbers come out. Every time I played I’ve been off at least by a thousand in either direction. And that is for a $1,000 prize. Say my raffle number was 10,000. The closest winning numbers would be 9000 and 11,000. So I could have bought 2000 tickets at $20 a pop for a total of $40,000 and maybe win a grand. I’ve been off by many thousands pertaining to the bigger prizes.

My brilliant strategy is to buy two or three tickets over the course of a couple weeks. It seems like the $100,000 and $1,000,000 prizes are won in the 20,000 to 250,000 range, typically. Its still a stretch, of course, but its not like you have to go nuts trying to get the first few or the very last tickets. The Illinois Lottery website posts the number of tickets remaining. As of this writing, there are 475,739 tickets remaining, so I’ll buy a ticket today and maybe two next week.

Here's somethinng else to think about. At a $20 buy in even if you win $1,000,000 each of those twenty dollards has won $50,000 compared to a $1 lottery ticket that wins even $2,000,000 at the jackpot start point for a Pick 6 state lottery.

If you win $100,000 each of your dollars has wom $5,000 - a Pick 4 straight pay off in Illinois, and if you win $1,000 each buck won $50.

All that is, of course, if your ticket is one of the 509 winners and not one of the 499,491 losers.

Raffles are a good exercise in hype marketing but a bad deal for the players.

500,000 tickets, 509 winners.

That's a "batting average" of 0.001018 of wining players.

I don't mind buying the governor a cup of coffee but he can buy his own scotch.

The Illinois Lottery would like you to know if you don't want to go through the formaily of playing a raffle ticket, just send $20 to

Gov. Pat Quinn

The Capitol Building

Springfield, ILlinois

 ”It seems like the $100,000 and $1,000,000 prizes are won in the 20,000 to 250,000 range“

how to you know?   if true, it narrows down the range.  how do you know most would  fall in that range, any theory?   it's then not truly random    or  is it?

Raffles are awesome, go for it!  They are not created for people who like small prizes less than $10, so if that's you I would avoid it.  However, if you're looking for a much better shot at a big prize, raffles are perfect.

To each their own Todd, but let me add this.

In Nevada when a new game goes into a casino it's given a test run to see how popular it is, etc. But if the Nevada Gaming Commission deems that the game has too much of a house advantage over the player, out it goes.

I'm wondering how they would treat one of these raffles, if they had a lottery.

On the lighter side, it's really ironic that so many here at LP that are "anti-quick pick" can't wait to buy a $20 serial numbered raffle ticket. I know the raffle has little to do with number selection, but it's still ironic.

Good Luck all.

The Illinois Lottery posts all the winning numbers. I just made a mental note of it.

I hope you did not think I was answering your post.  In fact, at the time I wrote my message I had only read the very first post in this thread and answered it directly. 

I'm definitely aware that there are people who don't like raffles, and I would never consider faulting anyone for their like or dislike of any game.  There are lots of different games for a good reason -- something to fit any perspective!

funny thing about raffles is about the same with scratchoffs somebody's gonna win small prizes and somebody's gonna win the big prizes and nobody knows who thats going to be until it done and over with. While the odds are enormous theres a chance that it might land in your lap.

It's one of those things you have to wait and see while there will be plenty of disappointed people everyone holding a winning ticket will be glad they won something.

Todd,

True. I'm not really anti-raffle, I'm just taking a real deep look at it.

I just think of it as a bookie's wet dream, which it is.

Illinois has the population to handle a 1,000,000 ticket raffle at $10 a ticket, I just wonder why they don't.

Table games, slots, and Pick 5 , Pick 6, and 5 + 1 games don't have known results beforehand as far as will anyone win. Raffles do. Not who will win, but how many will win. That's a lopsided house advantage.

Like I said, good luck all.

I did a little study on the risk/reward taking into account jackpot size and $20 for the raffle. The bigger the number the better...

I don't know how this will format on the screen...

                                       Powerball      MegaMillions       Raffle

Jackpot  (Cash)                  .055                 .450                .400

100K(250k MM,200KPB)    .039                .064                 .100

1,000Raf  10,000(MM&PB) .014                 .015               .050

Also take into account no smaller prizes for raffle.

So for the bigger prizes the raffle is much better unless the PB/MM jackpot is huge....

MarkP