Quote: Originally posted by CarHauler on Dec 21, 2010
I really wouldn't be cynical, but I understand. I used to be too, until I realized that long strings happen in every game, and that it almost certainly means that there is a good chance that a big winner accompanied it, either before or after. I have played Maximum Green a total of 5 times now, and of that, two were losers, one won $100, and two won $25, for a total of $150. If I keep up with numbers like that, I will be very happy. The losses do add up quickly. I have no intentions of going out and buying 5 of these at a time. I won't play such an expensive game that way. Thankfully, I learned my lesson on a $10 game, and I learned it quickly. I am just sad that I had to lose so much money. You live and you learn.
You will happy to know that as of today, I am calling it quits for Holiday Gifts. Too many days of spending $40, and having a free ticket to show for it. Shame on me for keeping the false hope up for so long. I will most likely be replacing it with Maximum Green. Yes, you heard me right; I am replacing my $5 game with a $20 game. The lottery did it to itself. They tantalize you with frequent wins, and you just can't seem to go wrong with the game. It pays out every 3 tickets, and it is either $15 or $20, so it is a break even game, and I had lots of fun playing it. There are no winners of a free ticket, only winners and losers. They get you hooked.
Then bam, like a hammer, like a light switch, they cut it off. It is like they literally closed the flood gates. I have thought it was dying for a while, but I am certain of it now. Holiday Gifts is 100% dead. I am sad to report that I have purchased my last ticket. I cannot and will not continue purchasing strings of three tickets to lose, or get a free ticket. All of the success I had on it was at the beginning, when I had the odds of 1 in almost every 2-3 tickets being a winner. Now to compensate for all of the winners, they have to put out tons of losers, and hope that they can sell them before people get wise and quit buying them. I think they messed up royally, just in time for Christmas.
As I have said before, I think the game was designed as a stocking stuffer, and when it first came out, it would have made a really good one. Almost any family of four would have had a near 100% chance of one of those being a winner in the beginning, which is what I think they intended. Everyone would wake up on Christmas morning, and find a Holiday Gifts ticket in their stocking, and almost certainly someone in that family would have won $15 or $20, so that would get new business.
After all, if someone won even once out of the family, then there must be a lot more winners, that is what people might think. After seeing those winners, they would go out and buy more. But they really messed up big-time. They did not realize what a hit the game was going to be, so they ran out of winners way too soon. They did not want families to find any free tickets in their stockings. Free tickets just soften the blow to us, and anger us many times. Free tickets are not what anyone wants to find in their stockings. That only brings resentment, anger, and mistrust for the lottery. They did not intend on most families having no winners, but that is exactly what is going to happen.
In my opinion, only 1 out of every 2 families will have a winner now, and of those, 95% will be free tickets. They simply made the winners fizzle out too soon. I don't think that they will be prepared for the backlash that this is going to cause. I can tell you after spending about $150 on this game over the course of the last 4 days, and only having one $15 winner, a $10 winner, and maybe 3 free tickets, that people are going to be mad, and are going to develop a very, very bad taste for the lottery. I don't think they intended this game to do so poorly until after the new year. Maybe they are counting on people being stupid enough to think that they can still win and that they will buy some for stocking stuffers anyway. Not me, and not at my house.
See, to make up for all of the frequent, good sized winners in the beginning, they have to put out a sizeable number of losers. The overall odds are 1 in 3.99, so if the odds had been paying out at 1 in 2.5, then guess what? Now they will pay out at 1 in 5.5 to compensate. And what about those nice $15 and $20 constant winners? Sorry, those days have long since past. Now not only will you only win 1 out of 5.5 times, it will be a free ticket. And what about those $75 and $150 winners I had this month on Holiday Gifts? Those were on ticket printings prior to 200,000. If you can find a book with a lower serial number than that, and it still has a bunch of tickets on it, then it definitely may be worth pursuing, but buddy, let me tell you, the lottery is quickly making its money back on this game.
There was a time not too long ago where I was ahead by $150 in this game, and that was just after the big winner. I should have quit then, but I just had to keep searching. I haven't tallied it up yet, but my guess is that I am around $0 in overall profit for this game. I will count all of the tickets, but I am assuming that I will end up having played about 150 times for this game, so that is around $750 that I have spent on it. That does not make me all knowing, but it puts me in a position to know what I am talking about. I strongly suggest that no one else buy any more of these tickets. Let the Georgia Lottery eat the cost. I hope these tickets go stale on the shelves, and people refuse to buy them. That would be the smart thing to do.
RIP Holiday Gifts. I purchased my last ticket today at Racetrack on Canton Road. The last ticket which I purchased was 842-219589-025. It lost. Out of the seven tickets and $35 I spent today, I won a free ticket. I won the free ticket on ticket number842-210229-004, and I purchased it on QT on Sandy Plains Road. This is not an isolated incident, I am sad to report. It has been occurring like this for the past few weeks. 20,000 tickets (after 200,000) is a large enough sample for me make such a judgment. In the days to come, I may issue an after-action report.