Wyomissing, PA United States
Member #161,043
November 15, 2014
481 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by Crazy Wombat on Dec 7, 2014
I share your interest or "no interest" in the tv show. I bought my second ticket last week ... my decision was to wait till the $25 million limit was hit and then cover the game ... decided to play the week before when it was $21 million. I didn't realize that two out of five numbers would give your $5 back ... I had two numbers and one number was "one number off" ... the famous "one number off" routine that has cost many gamblers a small fortune ... always in the right neighborhood just on the wrong porch!
Seeing that you are in PA ... our best shot at $1 million may be the $20 raffle game going on now ... I'm always one to experiment ... in 2006 I bought 25 tickets spread out for the summer raffle game. I bought a ticket every Mon, Wed and Fri ... I normally go 2 or 3 tickets but I had to get it out of system, beside 2006 was a bad year ... I needed a million dollars as soon as possible. No hits ... not even $100 ... but what is a lousy 25 tickets out of 500,000 tickets total, never did it again ... will just stick to my 2 or 3 tickets. Actually, in 2006 the tickets sold was 625,000 I think and the the next game they dropped the tickets sales to 500,000 ... but give or take and extra 125,000 tickets ... where do 25 tickets fit into the scheme of things ?
I do have a question for LottoMetro (or anyone) ... so the number of millionaires went from 16 to 18 for next Friday ... is this a "fixed" total with no change if sales are up ... like they do for PB and MM as ticket sales increase on a large jackpot? Then will the number of possible millionaires always increase just by two as nobody hits the $25 million jackpot for a month or two ... if this were to actually happen. Would there be more millionaire chances added ... like 5 or 6 instead of just two.
I am thinking that once CA joins, the jackpot will be hit more often so the game will start to lose interest for me ... I decided to buy two tickets for next Friday ... before CA gets into the game in Jan, I may be wrong on that date.
I also wish you had an option to receive some money if you didn't want to go to Vegas ... I agree with all you said about $500 and Vegas ... some people will enjoy a nice trip or vacation and I will pass.
I also have one other question to understand things better ... just because there are 18 possible millionaire chances next Friday ... people living in PA (or other states) "do not" really have 18 chances to win ... if I understand the rules. There could not be 10 or 12 winners from PA ... just maybe 2 or 4 total, am I correct?
That takes some of the luster of the game for me ... a small state actually only has one chance or one slot at a winner ... like the Virgin Islands for example?
Thanks all and GLTA ...
I too have tried similar. Won zilch. Needless to say, I still buy a few, but not many. Heck, the last raffle, I only bought one. 2006 sounds about right. PA Lottery even resorted to discounting the raffle tickets - don't recall the exact promotion, but it amounted to about two dollars off. Not much, but guess it made the difference, because they sold out just under the wire. PA never did that again - been 500,000 ever since.
I won't go crazy with buying lots of MMC tickets - been there, done that with the PA Lottery raffle.
You bring up an interesting point about whether millionaire club winners are apportioned by state based on play volume and/or other criteria. In the past club raffle, it appeared the 14 winners were not apportioned, which, in my view, is good. But not certain.
How are the millionaire club raffle numbers generated? -they seem to vary in format a bit from state to state. This is an important detail. Presumably, each state maintains its own numbers file for the game. And that would, presumably, extend to the club number and Vegas trip number too.
To digress a bit, how numbers files are maintained for multi-jurisdictional games, such as Powerball and Mega Millions, is a whole topic in itself that I'd love see discussed in more detail. Many players assume there's some central computer connection to a master numbers file in real-time, but my understanding this is not so. Each state maintains its own numbers file.
And how are the club raffle numbers chosen? -more to the point, are some states apportioned more "chances"?
So little transparency with MMC - it's amazing how little detail there is about seemingly important parts of the game. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place, though so far, the best info has been in this thread. Very helpful! :)
Happyland United States
Member #146,338
September 1, 2013
1,176 Posts
Offline
I believe there are other MMC threads where I have addressed the issue of the raffle numbers, but I'll go ahead and restate some things.
Indeed, every state (or more correctly, vendor) maintains their own file. This is simply because not all lotteries use the same vendor(s). They transfer this to MUSL's centralized servers via a secure connection, and it's pretty much automated. Except in cases where there is an exuberant level of sales, they will know the winners about 10 minutes after the drawing (then follows the process of double-checking/verification). The MCP drawing takes much longer.
For the MCP drawing, basically each state's pool of tickets is "indexed" so that all the tickets can be combined and selected from. In other words, ticket #5345435 from Florida will not be ticket #5345435 in the second-prize drawing, but rather a value assigned to that ticket as an index. It doesn't actually matter which number it is assigned. The prizes are not apportioned or divided up by state....it is simple random draw. The draw manager punches in how many prizes to choose, and the computer picks from the total index. This is a uniform distribution, so every ticket has exactly the same chances of being selected, regardless of location or how many other tickets were purchased in that state. Once the indexed tickets are chosen, then it is simply a matter of the lottery reversing through the index to locate the actual ticket number to present to the public as a winner. The documents explaining this are a little more technical in detail, but that's the gist of it.
Note: The MMC TV show drawing procedures are different. They do not pool all the entries together. Each state chooses separately.
If the chances of winning the jackpot are so slim, why play when the jackpot is so small? Your chances never change, but the potential payoff does.
If a crystal ball showed you the future of the rest of your life, and in that future you will never win a jackpot, would you still play?
Wyomissing, PA United States
Member #161,043
November 15, 2014
481 Posts
Offline
Thank you for restating the info, and explaining the indexing aspect. Makes sense, and is reassuring, especially for players in low sales jurisdictions; they have an equal chance of winning the millionaire club raffle.
United States
Member #161,532
December 3, 2014
328 Posts
Offline
I also thank you for all the information on this new game LottoMetro ... I used Google for searching for answers, just can't find the information I was looking for. I may not play this game much longer and just watch till Spring. There's just too much "mystery" to this game ... I personally wish they would have a game like the 6-49 lotto in Canada. They start at 5 million and it grows fast plus there is an extra special number on each ticket for a one million dollar prize ... no one has the same number and every draw a separate million dollars is won whether the jackpot gets hit or not plus you can add another dollar for a separate set of prizes ... I didn't read up on the "extra dollar" part very much ... regular ticket is $3 with a shot at the jackpot and a separate million dollar prize and the extra dollar seems to be another game with various ways to win ... so you spend $4 (Canadian) and have a nice game and $5 here for a "mystery" game. They have real bouncing balls for the main jackpot and that's always nice.
Well I am glad to read that I am not alone in being "crazy" when I bought 25 PA raffle tickets back in 2006. It was pretty sad after the drawing looking at my pile of "worthless" tickets that had cost $500 ... some of the most expensive worthless paper I ever looked at ... I kept thinking later, should have bought stock in a worthless uranium mine ... that was all the rage in the 50's and 60's ... uranium mine stock, a sure road to riches ! ... the stock certificates were pretty as I remember seeing some as a kid back then.
Guess what ... I just bought my first PA raffle ticket this morning ... I was shocked ... this is Dec 08th and they haven't sold 100,000 tickets yet ... mine was 97,450 and they have to sell over 400,000 more tickets by Jan 03.
I was expecting around 120,000 to be sold by now ... sales will pick toward the end of the month but I was still shocked at almost the middle of Dec and still under 100,000.
I want to float this idea for a "national lottery" like elGordo in Spain ... something similiar in this country ... maybe tickets costing $2 ... $2.50 or $5 ... however all prizes won would be tax free from the federal tax. Tickets would be on sale all year and could be bought at any Post Office ... 50% of every ticket sold would go to the federal government for taxes and expenses and 50% would be prize money in the pot for a whole year. Every December the US would have this one big tax free drawing ... they have already collected the taxes along the way as tickets were sold ... so the Feds have their money up front as the year progresses ... I can see a big jackpot by December.
United States
Member #160,348
October 25, 2014
104 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by Crazy Wombat on Dec 8, 2014
I also thank you for all the information on this new game LottoMetro ... I used Google for searching for answers, just can't find the information I was looking for. I may not play this game much longer and just watch till Spring. There's just too much "mystery" to this game ... I personally wish they would have a game like the 6-49 lotto in Canada. They start at 5 million and it grows fast plus there is an extra special number on each ticket for a one million dollar prize ... no one has the same number and every draw a separate million dollars is won whether the jackpot gets hit or not plus you can add another dollar for a separate set of prizes ... I didn't read up on the "extra dollar" part very much ... regular ticket is $3 with a shot at the jackpot and a separate million dollar prize and the extra dollar seems to be another game with various ways to win ... so you spend $4 (Canadian) and have a nice game and $5 here for a "mystery" game. They have real bouncing balls for the main jackpot and that's always nice.
Well I am glad to read that I am not alone in being "crazy" when I bought 25 PA raffle tickets back in 2006. It was pretty sad after the drawing looking at my pile of "worthless" tickets that had cost $500 ... some of the most expensive worthless paper I ever looked at ... I kept thinking later, should have bought stock in a worthless uranium mine ... that was all the rage in the 50's and 60's ... uranium mine stock, a sure road to riches ! ... the stock certificates were pretty as I remember seeing some as a kid back then.
Guess what ... I just bought my first PA raffle ticket this morning ... I was shocked ... this is Dec 08th and they haven't sold 100,000 tickets yet ... mine was 97,450 and they have to sell over 400,000 more tickets by Jan 03.
I was expecting around 120,000 to be sold by now ... sales will pick toward the end of the month but I was still shocked at almost the middle of Dec and still under 100,000.
I want to float this idea for a "national lottery" like elGordo in Spain ... something similiar in this country ... maybe tickets costing $2 ... $2.50 or $5 ... however all prizes won would be tax free from the federal tax. Tickets would be on sale all year and could be bought at any Post Office ... 50% of every ticket sold would go to the federal government for taxes and expenses and 50% would be prize money in the pot for a whole year. Every December the US would have this one big tax free drawing ... they have already collected the taxes along the way as tickets were sold ... so the Feds have their money up front as the year progresses ... I can see a big jackpot by December.
Just an idea for discussion.
...
The hot lotto game available in a few states is an advertised tax free jackpot. The taxes are
getting paid but at least the advertised jackpot is what you get. No homework/guess work involved.
I think the monopoly games should be transformed into a weekly $5 raffle game with a guarenteed
xx amount of millionaires based on xx amount of sales.
Florida - West Coast United States
Member #92,605
June 10, 2010
6,582 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by Ron5995 on Dec 7, 2014
I too have tried similar. Won zilch. Needless to say, I still buy a few, but not many. Heck, the last raffle, I only bought one. 2006 sounds about right. PA Lottery even resorted to discounting the raffle tickets - don't recall the exact promotion, but it amounted to about two dollars off. Not much, but guess it made the difference, because they sold out just under the wire. PA never did that again - been 500,000 ever since.
I won't go crazy with buying lots of MMC tickets - been there, done that with the PA Lottery raffle.
You bring up an interesting point about whether millionaire club winners are apportioned by state based on play volume and/or other criteria. In the past club raffle, it appeared the 14 winners were not apportioned, which, in my view, is good. But not certain.
How are the millionaire club raffle numbers generated? -they seem to vary in format a bit from state to state. This is an important detail. Presumably, each state maintains its own numbers file for the game. And that would, presumably, extend to the club number and Vegas trip number too.
To digress a bit, how numbers files are maintained for multi-jurisdictional games, such as Powerball and Mega Millions, is a whole topic in itself that I'd love see discussed in more detail. Many players assume there's some central computer connection to a master numbers file in real-time, but my understanding this is not so. Each state maintains its own numbers file.
And how are the club raffle numbers chosen? -more to the point, are some states apportioned more "chances"?
So little transparency with MMC - it's amazing how little detail there is about seemingly important parts of the game. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place, though so far, the best info has been in this thread. Very helpful! :)
I too had to fight off the strong temptation to spend more than I knew I should on raffle tickets.
What I did to get around it was to get a group of seven guys at work (plus myself) to form a pool. We each threw in 40 bucks and bought a total of sixteen tickets. While that does reduce a jackpot win to $125,000 per pool member (before taxes) at least forming a pool satisfied my urge to splurge. G5
Florida - West Coast United States
Member #92,605
June 10, 2010
6,582 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by GiveFive on Dec 8, 2014
I too had to fight off the strong temptation to spend more than I knew I should on raffle tickets.
What I did to get around it was to get a group of seven guys at work (plus myself) to form a pool. We each threw in 40 bucks and bought a total of sixteen tickets. While that does reduce a jackpot win to $125,000 per pool member (before taxes) at least forming a pool satisfied my urge to splurge. G5
While we're on the subject of temptation..............
I've been tempted to do something since last summer. It's totally unrelated to MMC, and has to do with scratch off's. I almost did it last summer, but a medical problem sidelined me for three months, and I found myself out of work. So I put the idea on the shelf.
Now that I'm in good health and back to work, I am sorely tempted to try what I'm about to describe. I've never plunked down 500 bucks on any kind of lottery ticket, but I might just do it.
I'm thinking of buying an unopened pack of 100 scratch-off tickets (That'd cost $500) and starting a pool similar to what many offices do for the SuperBowl. You know, people pick and buy one of 100 squares for 5 bucks, and if their name is in the square that is ultimately selected, they'd win the whole unopened pack of scratch off's. I realize that I don't have to front 500 bucks to do this, but I may go ahead and front the money anyway to expedite things. I may even do it to coincide with the SuperBowl which is Feb 1st.
Once all 100 squares are sold, I'd use the first and last number of that day's Win3 drawing to select the winning square. My guess is I wont have any problems selling all 100 squares.
United States
Member #85,034
January 7, 2010
262 Posts
Offline
I won $10 after I bought 2 tickets. Meh. I love anything Monopoly, I play the game when it comes out at McDonald's every year. Really the only time I go there.
United States
Member #161,532
December 3, 2014
328 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by Lucky4Life on Dec 8, 2014
I won $10 after I bought 2 tickets. Meh. I love anything Monopoly, I play the game when it comes out at McDonald's every year. Really the only time I go there.
Does anyone know when it's over?
Since no one answered your question ... I have limited knowledge of the "mystery game" myself. Are you talking about McDonald's Monopoly or the $5 game? I would suppose someday ... if the new game continues to lose money, then they might pull the plug on it.
There are still more states waiting to join in 2015 so I imagine it will go on for the new year. Perhaps 2016 will be another matter ... I really don't know how long they can operate the game at a loss, somebody is going to have to keep putting money into the pot to cover expenses and pay the winners.
They may just end it or change it like they do with all the other big games ... make it much harder to win any money. If they do make it harder to win, then I would never play it again ... not another dollar from me.
We had to go through all these changes with MM and PB ... always making the games harder to win the top prizes and lowering the smaller prize money. The jackpots were going to be HUGE ... well the jackpots still get hit fairly often by a lucky person while the rest of us struggle to win a few "peanuts" at the bottom.
I have moved on from MM and PB myself as of November ... I have thrown in the towel ... for me the 6/43 game seems to be the only game left worth putting money on ... it's still hard with the odds but a better chance at a life changing something.
Just my opinion ... I started a 6/43 thread and it kinda died and went off the radar to Page 2 ... I was hoping for some serious discussions on the various state games. I may bring it back to life and try one more time. I have some questions which I will post there.
Happyland United States
Member #146,338
September 1, 2013
1,176 Posts
Offline
My guess is, they aren't going to pull the plug easily. They are patiently waiting for the other states to join, as well as the TV game show to premiere, and they know that the game can only succeed with high participation. They spent over 5 years of research, debate, and planning for this game, and they aren't the kind of people to let that go easily. Most likely they would just do what they do when they have problems with PB and MM....change the game structure. I've recently heard that they may already have something in the works to address the deficit.
Shows are currently scheduled through summer 2016, so my guess is that is when they will re-evaluate everything, although changes may be made before then.
If the chances of winning the jackpot are so slim, why play when the jackpot is so small? Your chances never change, but the potential payoff does.
If a crystal ball showed you the future of the rest of your life, and in that future you will never win a jackpot, would you still play?
Happyland United States
Member #146,338
September 1, 2013
1,176 Posts
Offline
For whatever reason my original poll/MMC topic was closed, so I am posting an update here. This information was released today and only proposed 2 days ago, so it is literally the latest. It's not much different than what I expected.....basically the lotteries are focused on reducing the prize liability.
So far this tentative proposal consists of:
Starting jackpot at $5 million annuity
Starting Club prizes at 1 and rolling based on sales
Alternatively (and/or), reduce the amounts on fixed prizes
Supposedly they want to restart near the end of January but carry over remainder from this Friday's drawing. I don't see how any money would carry over though.
To summarize, instead of addressing the issue of players being unwilling to pay $5 a pop, they are just making the value proposition worse. They even admit that the changes could worsen sales, but since the liability will be much lower they will be able to sustain the game, at least until the TV show airs (still happening btw).
As I also suspected, there is indeed conflict among the states regarding what to next. To be honest, based on the vibe I'm getting, I don't see Monopoly surviving after 2015. I think one of the reasons is the vendor's contract and how the game was set up. It's even more complicated by the fact that this is a licensed property. I would also blame stubbornness. They are just determined to play the game at $5, regardless how bad the prize matrix is.
If the chances of winning the jackpot are so slim, why play when the jackpot is so small? Your chances never change, but the potential payoff does.
If a crystal ball showed you the future of the rest of your life, and in that future you will never win a jackpot, would you still play?
Jacksonville United States
Member #153,799
March 26, 2014
818 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by LottoMetro on Dec 24, 2014
For whatever reason my original poll/MMC topic was closed, so I am posting an update here. This information was released today and only proposed 2 days ago, so it is literally the latest. It's not much different than what I expected.....basically the lotteries are focused on reducing the prize liability.
So far this tentative proposal consists of:
Starting jackpot at $5 million annuity
Starting Club prizes at 1 and rolling based on sales
Alternatively (and/or), reduce the amounts on fixed prizes
Supposedly they want to restart near the end of January but carry over remainder from this Friday's drawing. I don't see how any money would carry over though.
To summarize, instead of addressing the issue of players being unwilling to pay $5 a pop, they are just making the value proposition worse. They even admit that the changes could worsen sales, but since the liability will be much lower they will be able to sustain the game, at least until the TV show airs (still happening btw).
As I also suspected, there is indeed conflict among the states regarding what to next. To be honest, based on the vibe I'm getting, I don't see Monopoly surviving after 2015. I think one of the reasons is the vendor's contract and how the game was set up. It's even more complicated by the fact that this is a licensed property. I would also blame stubbornness. They are just determined to play the game at $5, regardless how bad the prize matrix is.
Thank you again for the update. One question, what do you mean when you say that they want to "carry over remainder from this Friday's drawing." Does that mean the number of millionaires will stay at 22 when re-released in January or does it reset to 1. Also, it looks like the Las Vegas drawing scheduled for 1/6/15 is still on. I don't know how sales will not plummet if the overall payout structure is diminished as drastically as they are proposing. The 1 in 70MM odds for a $5MM annuity is pretty bad. I tend to agree with you that this games mid to late 2015 at best.
Wyomissing, PA United States
Member #161,043
November 15, 2014
481 Posts
Offline
Just when I thought the MMC game couldn't become even more of a ripoff. On a related note, many of the MMC participating lotteries have posted notices saying the MMC game is ending with no mention of it returning. It will be confusing to some, if it comes back, especially so soon. And for sure, many will avoid MMC - why play a failed, retread game that has even worse payouts than the previous incarnation.
$5 million annuity is equivalent to about $3 million cash. With that in mind, if a player is seeking to win that, why play MMC with 1 in ~73 million odds when there are better, lower cost choices:
Mega Millions offers roughly the same size prize, by matching 5, at a far lower price-point $2 (adding Megaplier) with better odds of 1 in ~18.5 million. And on a price adjusted basis ($5 is equivalent to 2.5 $2 MM tickets with Megaplier) Mega Million odds get even better down to 1 in ~7.4 million.
Powerball pays $1 million cash, by matching 5, for $2. So to compare apples to apples, one could buy a MMC ticket for $5 -or- 2 Powerball tickets with the same numbers - one with Powerplay costing $3 and another without costing $2 ... total cost $5. Same cost, but with the odds of winning $3 million cash being 14 times better!
As for the $1 million club prizes, one might as well buy a $20 instant ticket each week to go for a $million - better value (~70-75% overall payout verses ~50% for MMC), and more likely to win a decent consolation prize verses MMC which has very stingy lower tier prizes.
Seems many lottery officials are way out of touch with lottery players.