Los Angeles, California United States
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Quote: Originally posted by Chacha33 on Mar 20, 2014
Usually 3 and 4-spot. I'll play ten draws for both 3 and 4 with Bulls Eye for $2 a play ($40 total) every Friday and usually use the same set of numbers (3-14-57 and 08-58-66-68). Last week was a $38 return for the 4-spot (3 out of 4 with BE for one draw) and four separate $2 wins for the 3-spot. Still, I bet any lottery player would be somewhat happy with a $46 return on a $40 wager. If you remember the old, wildly-varying pari-mutuel days, 2/2 for one draw once paid $76, 3/3 with BE paid $395 and 4/4 awarded $9. I like the prize structure now and if I hit $50 or $100, I'm happy. Not expecting to win millions anywhere, but decent hits, obviously, are always welcome.
As for the Daily 3, I have not won since 2011 :-(
I played some Hot Spot in the past in a similar way, buy one number set for advance play like 10 or 20 draws (w/Bulls-eye) and then check later or from home.
Sometimes works out, almost good as Scratchers return. Other times bombed out.
I usually only play when they have a Hot Spot Promo going on, which happens only a couple times a year when they need to burn off excess reserve cash.
The way they state the overall odds is somewhat strange, so I made my own table a while ago. This is only for regular payouts, not Promo payouts which would be higher return:
California United States
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September 25, 2013
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So I won Gold $50(20x $2 and $10) a couple of weeks ago. It was #17 on the roll. I have been waiting for 2 weeks for the roll to renew and it still was only on #32 so I bought another and won the exact same $50(20x $2 and $10). Weird to have it the same way.
I went the next day to another place and had the same $50 combo.
I had a lousy week and then this week it's been better. Nothing big though.
Plenty of Diamond Millionaire in Costa Mesa where I go through on way home. Then again, there are 100's of liquor stores in that town it seems.
Pasadena, CA United States
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March 13, 2014
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Quote: Originally posted by OCScratchDevil on Mar 20, 2014
So I won Gold $50(20x $2 and $10) a couple of weeks ago. It was #17 on the roll. I have been waiting for 2 weeks for the roll to renew and it still was only on #32 so I bought another and won the exact same $50(20x $2 and $10). Weird to have it the same way.
I went the next day to another place and had the same $50 combo.
I had a lousy week and then this week it's been better. Nothing big though.
Plenty of Diamond Millionaire in Costa Mesa where I go through on way home. Then again, there are 100's of liquor stores in that town it seems.
The California Gold tickets have been good to me. Got an auto-win with all $2 and $3 for $50 (pretty bogus), but cashed that at another store and got a $100 winner out of the next few tix, so that's pretty good. The Diamond Millionaire hasn't been too kind; one $50 ($50 in spot 18) winner and a bunch of $20 and free tickets, never anything substantial.
Where the Gold beats the Diamond Millionaire is not having a ticket and $10 prize; the prize tier goes from ticket to $15, which every ticket should have. Or they could just dump the free ticket prize entirely and award breakeven cash prizes instead.
Pasadena, CA United States
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Quote: Originally posted by Jon D on Mar 20, 2014
I played some Hot Spot in the past in a similar way, buy one number set for advance play like 10 or 20 draws (w/Bulls-eye) and then check later or from home.
Sometimes works out, almost good as Scratchers return. Other times bombed out.
I usually only play when they have a Hot Spot Promo going on, which happens only a couple times a year when they need to burn off excess reserve cash.
The way they state the overall odds is somewhat strange, so I made my own table a while ago. This is only for regular payouts, not Promo payouts which would be higher return:
Spots
Top Prize
Overall Odds 1 in
Total Return
Game Return (~avg)
_
Hot Spot
w/Bulls-eye
Hot Spot
w/Bulls-eye
Hot Spot
w/Bulls-eye
Hot Spot
w/Bulls-eye
1 Spot
$2
$46
4.00
3.81
50.00%
53.75%
50%
53%
2 Spot
$9
$64
16.63
11.75
54.11%
57.69%
54%
57%
3 Spot
$26
$151
6.55
5.26
63.83%
65.88%
63%
60%
4 Spot
$75
$275
3.86
3.24
65.86%
68.73%
55%
60%
5 Spot
$450
$950
10.34
6.28
65.16%
69.40%
40%
45%
6 Spot
$900
$1,900
6.19
4.23
57.43%
63.07%
40%
40%
7 Spot
$2,000
$8,000
4.23
3.09
57.66%
63.96%
45%
45%
8 Spot
$10,000
$28,500
9.17
4.78
58.45%
64.96%
40%
40%
9 Spot
$30,000
$65,000
9.74
4.65
55.51%
64.02%
40%
40%
10 Spot
$100,000
$300,000
9.05
4.25
59.66%
65.09%
45%
45%
Thanks for the chart. The idea of not playing Hot Spot at all until the prize promotion is offered would not be the worst thing in the world. That being said, I do enjoy playing and my heart races whenever I'm watching the monitor and one of my numbers is the Bulls-Eye number.
With the prize levels, the California Lottery has taken the right step in offering higher prize levels in the 2, 3, 4 and 5-spot. If you recall, 2 used to pay $8, 3 was $16, 4 was $50 and 5 was $300 and the BE levels were pretty low as well.
United States
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September 24, 2013
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Thanks for all the insights with Hot Spot. The 3 and 4 spot payouts are almost to what a casino would pay out and it is good to see that the payout is getting more established and not pari-mutuel.
4 out of 4 for $9 is ridiculous when there are not enough players playing.
Prizes are decent, even if its a few hundred dollars. If you win above $599, it better be as far above it as possible.
California United States
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September 25, 2013
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So my Fianc� told me she was doing something fun for Friday. I got home and she had bought a pack of Gold and taped a gold balloon to each ticket. Helium balloons everywhere.
I scratched the tickets and my ROI was $365 so not bad. I noticed a clear 100% pattern though. On every ticket where I scratched off a $2.00 spot there was a winner somewhere else between $15-$25. It happened 14 out of 14 times.
The pack was #302153
I know it's hard to track things so I wanted to show the results.
United States
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September 24, 2013
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Quote: Originally posted by OCScratchDevil on Mar 22, 2014
So my Fianc� told me she was doing something fun for Friday. I got home and she had bought a pack of Gold and taped a gold balloon to each ticket. Helium balloons everywhere.
I scratched the tickets and my ROI was $365 so not bad. I noticed a clear 100% pattern though. On every ticket where I scratched off a $2.00 spot there was a winner somewhere else between $15-$25. It happened 14 out of 14 times.
The pack was #302153
I know it's hard to track things so I wanted to show the results.
Pasadena, CA United States
Member #153,319
March 13, 2014
186 Posts
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Quote: Originally posted by OCScratchDevil on Mar 22, 2014
So my Fianc� told me she was doing something fun for Friday. I got home and she had bought a pack of Gold and taped a gold balloon to each ticket. Helium balloons everywhere.
I scratched the tickets and my ROI was $365 so not bad. I noticed a clear 100% pattern though. On every ticket where I scratched off a $2.00 spot there was a winner somewhere else between $15-$25. It happened 14 out of 14 times.
The pack was #302153
I know it's hard to track things so I wanted to show the results.
I had a different experience with the Gold ticket, Devil. I got the Win-All symbol with ten $2 spots and ten $3 spots for a $50 win. Do you mean only if it matches with the corresponding number that it will be a $15 to $25 prize?
$385 if you treat ticket winners as $10 cash, a 77% ROI. Not bad, especially for scratchers. Doesn't beat Vegas, though.
California United States
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September 25, 2013
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Quote: Originally posted by Chacha33 on Mar 23, 2014
I had a different experience with the Gold ticket, Devil. I got the Win-All symbol with ten $2 spots and ten $3 spots for a $50 win. Do you mean only if it matches with the corresponding number that it will be a $15 to $25 prize?
$385 if you treat ticket winners as $10 cash, a 77% ROI. Not bad, especially for scratchers. Doesn't beat Vegas, though.
I have had a few of the Win All $2/$3 ones too but what I meant for this roll was that everytime I scratched off a $2 spot on a ticket, that ticket ended up being a winner. The wins were between $15 and $25 with most being $15. It was just interesting because I was able to know by the end that if I saw a $2 scratch, somewhere else on the card, I was going to win money.
Pasadena, CA United States
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March 13, 2014
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Quote: Originally posted by OCScratchDevil on Mar 24, 2014
I have had a few of the Win All $2/$3 ones too but what I meant for this roll was that everytime I scratched off a $2 spot on a ticket, that ticket ended up being a winner. The wins were between $15 and $25 with most being $15. It was just interesting because I was able to know by the end that if I saw a $2 scratch, somewhere else on the card, I was going to win money.
The Diamond Millionaire also has those, however, they're almost always for a breakeven prize ($2 times 5). In any event, the $10 tix seem to be an overall better investment than the $20 one; that one blows. The $20 ticket, as I'm sure you know, has the $2 spots as well, for the Jackpot Win-All 25 prizes symbol ($2 times 25 is so lame, but better than nothing).