Pennsylvania Millionaire Raffle - XXIVPrev TopicNext Topic

• GiveFive

  

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  Jun 9, 2017, 8:33 am

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  There's about a month to go until the drawing, and it appears is if over 200K tickets have been sold.  There are some more Early Bird drawings too, so my guess is in about two weeks the majority of tickets will have been sold.  If the mad ticket buying rush at the end of the sales cycle materializes like it has in the past, all 500,000 will likely be gone before the 1st of July.  There isn't much doubt in my mind that the Early Bird drawings have had the desired effect on ticket sales.  G5

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• Jeopardy1941

  

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  Jun 13, 2017, 12:22 pm

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  Segment 6 ranges from 156000 to  just under 188000,  so 32000 sold which is a bit above average especially with the high power ball drawing last week.
• Jeopardy1941

  

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  Jun 15, 2017, 10:50 am

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  Segment 6 winner is ticket 172511, sold at the brand new Rutters in Annville, which coincidentally is only about 4 miles away from the winning ticket from last week in Palmyra in Lebanon County. Likely sold last Friday.
• Jeopardy1941

  

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  Jun 20, 2017, 7:55 am

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  Segment 7 ranges from roughly 188000 to 222000 or 34,000 sold.
• Cash$out

  

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  I don't think they are going to sell out this time.
• Ron5995

  

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  Jun 21, 2017, 12:20 am

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  In response to Cash$out

  Quote: Originally posted by Cash$out on Jun 20, 2017

  I don't think they are going to sell out this time.

  Ditto. Sales do seem slow. The early-bird drawing is helping sales, but only 1 prize per draw doesn't add much excitement; little chance of winning anything extra.

  A better approach would have been to have multiple prizes, such as 1 $50,000 prize and 50 $1,000 prizes (same $100K total). Or something along those lines. If they'd done that, I would have bought more. As of now, I only have 2 tickets. Might buy another or two before the end.
• Jeopardy1941

  

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  Jun 22, 2017, 1:31 pm

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  Segment 7 winner is ticket 200562, sold in Danielsville.  Likely sold on Saturday.

   

  Should hit the halfway mark in sales by Monday.  16 days until the drawing, need to avg. about 16,000 per day to sell out, which is currently 4 days of worth of sales.  Hard to see sustained sales like that.
• GiveFive

  

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  Jun 23, 2017, 3:45 pm

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  In response to Jeopardy1941

  Quote: Originally posted by Jeopardy1941 on Jun 22, 2017

  Segment 7 winner is ticket 200562, sold in Danielsville.  Likely sold on Saturday.

   

  Should hit the halfway mark in sales by Monday.  16 days until the drawing, need to avg. about 16,000 per day to sell out, which is currently 4 days of worth of sales.  Hard to see sustained sales like that.

  I dunno Jep...

  We'll see if they sell out or not (here's to hoping they don't) but sales really spike up during those last few days. Seems to me that they were selling at a 20,000 per day clip just before the drawing last year.  We'll see.  G5

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• GiveFive

  

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  Jun 23, 2017, 3:51 pm

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  In response to Ron5995

  Quote: Originally posted by Ron5995 on Jun 21, 2017

  Ditto. Sales do seem slow. The early-bird drawing is helping sales, but only 1 prize per draw doesn't add much excitement; little chance of winning anything extra.

  A better approach would have been to have multiple prizes, such as 1 $50,000 prize and 50 $1,000 prizes (same $100K total). Or something along those lines. If they'd done that, I would have bought more. As of now, I only have 2 tickets. Might buy another or two before the end.

  Ron, have you ever considered applying for a job with the PA Lottery?  You really know how to motivate players.  They could use a good man like you! 

  Might scoot over to PA soon and buy a few more.  I didn't run a pool at work this time around.  One of the guys who gets in regularly asked me if there was a July 4th raffle this year, and if so, was I was going to run a pool.  I told him that there is a July 4th raffle, but I hadn't made up my mind yet if I wanted to run another pool. Still haven't made up my mind about it.  G5

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• GiveFive

  

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  Jun 24, 2017, 9:07 am

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  Pennsylvania really does have a good thing going by holding these raffles, given the scarcity of them around the country.  Florida runs a raffle very similar to PA's, but they do it just once per year at New Years.  You just don't see or hear about raffles too much. (If there ever was a place where you'd learn of raffles elsewhere, it'd be here at The Lottery Post, but there isn't much chatter gong on here with regard to raffles in other states.) While it is true that PA did find out last year that they had the timing of them right all along (prior to 2016 holding just two raffles per year instead of four) there's not much doubt players react positively to them.  If this particular raffle doesn't sell out, my guess is that they'll still sell over 400,000 tickets.

  Which leads me to this: If The PA Lottery thinks they have a good thing going (and like I said, they obviously do) why not look to improve/enhance it? Ron's suggestions in his earlier post were terrific.  Imagine the "buzz" that would be created by implementing them.  I'm sure there are a lot of players living in PA's border sates that drive across that state border line to get in on the raffle (I'm one of them!) and my guess is there'd be a whole lot more cross border traffic if PA enhanced the raffle as was suggested by Ron. (Not to mention the interest of players living in PA would go through the roof.) Hope they're reading this.  G5

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• GiveFive

  

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  Jun 26, 2017, 7:13 am

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  Two more Early Bird drawings to go.  I dunno if I see the point of having any more of them this late in the sales cycle. I guess it make sense, but does it really???

  Might pop over to PA and buy a few more, especially if it looks like they're not going to sell out.  G5

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• Ron5995

  

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  Jun 26, 2017, 1:27 pm

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  In response to GiveFive

  Quote: Originally posted by GiveFive on Jun 23, 2017

  Ron, have you ever considered applying for a job with the PA Lottery?  You really know how to motivate players.  They could use a good man like you! 

  Might scoot over to PA soon and buy a few more.  I didn't run a pool at work this time around.  One of the guys who gets in regularly asked me if there was a July 4th raffle this year, and if so, was I was going to run a pool.  I told him that there is a July 4th raffle, but I hadn't made up my mind yet if I wanted to run another pool. Still haven't made up my mind about it.  G5

  Thank you for the kind words. Would be neat to work for the lottery doing marketing. PA Lottery does very well as it is, but much of that is due to inertia. Among the first lotteries, running 40+ years, etc. Proposed on-line lottery purchasing will likely boost sales, though could cannibalize some sales from brick and mortar lottery retailers. Biggest challenge is enticing younger players under age ~35 (millennials) who by and large aren't overly excited about the lottery; many rarely play.

  Many regular, often older, lottery players are less excited about playing numbers, and hence the introduction of Pick-2, Wild Ball, etc to increase the chance of winning something; coming back for more. The large multi-jurisdictional jackpot games, ironically, are going the other way with less chances of winning along with increased price, but that's another topic.

  As for the raffle, despite the unexciting early-bird prize structure and lackluster sales, it's still worthwhile buying a ticket or two. However, for a sure sell out, it takes some players buying a lot more plus word of mouth to encourage others to buy. $20 is a hard sell when that same $20 will buy a lot of instant tickets, etc that have better odds of winning something sooner.

  I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of the raffle is at this point. Does it increase overall sales or simply cannibalize sales from other lottery products? The situation gets even worse, if the raffle is far from a sell out; 400,000 or less sold. The overall payback percentage, including early-bird, could potentially exceed 75%, while good for players, is somewhat less profitable than other PA Lottery numbers games that top out around 55%, and even most instant tickets that top out around 70%.

  In short, despite the PA Lottery likely not earning much extra from the raffle, it's nice they still offer it twice per year. Especially, considering many other lotteries don't offer any. Hopefully, I can at least win $100 like I did a few raffles ago - won't put me ahead by much, but is still nice to win something.
• GiveFive

  

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  Jun 26, 2017, 3:38 pm

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  In response to Ron5995

  Quote: Originally posted by Ron5995 on Jun 26, 2017

  Thank you for the kind words. Would be neat to work for the lottery doing marketing. PA Lottery does very well as it is, but much of that is due to inertia. Among the first lotteries, running 40+ years, etc. Proposed on-line lottery purchasing will likely boost sales, though could cannibalize some sales from brick and mortar lottery retailers. Biggest challenge is enticing younger players under age ~35 (millennials) who by and large aren't overly excited about the lottery; many rarely play.

  Many regular, often older, lottery players are less excited about playing numbers, and hence the introduction of Pick-2, Wild Ball, etc to increase the chance of winning something; coming back for more. The large multi-jurisdictional jackpot games, ironically, are going the other way with less chances of winning along with increased price, but that's another topic.

  As for the raffle, despite the unexciting early-bird prize structure and lackluster sales, it's still worthwhile buying a ticket or two. However, for a sure sell out, it takes some players buying a lot more plus word of mouth to encourage others to buy. $20 is a hard sell when that same $20 will buy a lot of instant tickets, etc that have better odds of winning something sooner.

  I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of the raffle is at this point. Does it increase overall sales or simply cannibalize sales from other lottery products? The situation gets even worse, if the raffle is far from a sell out; 400,000 or less sold. The overall payback percentage, including early-bird, could potentially exceed 75%, while good for players, is somewhat less profitable than other PA Lottery numbers games that top out around 55%, and even most instant tickets that top out around 70%.

  In short, despite the PA Lottery likely not earning much extra from the raffle, it's nice they still offer it twice per year. Especially, considering many other lotteries don't offer any. Hopefully, I can at least win $100 like I did a few raffles ago - won't put me ahead by much, but is still nice to win something.

  As a player, I rarely (if ever) consider the lottery's side of the coin. 

  All I ever think about is having one of those four top prize winning raffle tickets in my hand.  But reading your post gave me some good insight with regard to how easily these raffles could disappear.  Is the raffle cannibalizing sales from other lottery products?  I dunno, but it very well could be.  Maybe that's why other states don't offer them. 

  Anyway, I'm just like you, I won $100 a few raffles ago and am hoping that I win at least that much. G5 

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• Jeopardy1941

  

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  Jun 27, 2017, 12:22 pm

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  Segment 8 ranges from 222000 to 262000 or 40000 tickets sold or 5700 sold per day.  11 days until the drawing.  Need to sell 21000 per day to sell out, which clearly wont happen.  Compared to the New Years raffle, 367000 were already sold with the same amount of days remaining, and sales were really high on New Years Eve which helped to sell out all the tickets the day before the raffle. Based on the trends, I suspect only 375,000 will sell for this raffle giving the odds of hitting a million and 100K at roughly 1:94,000.  Lets hope the PA lottery doesn't extend the drawing date like it was done in other states, I suspect the PA lottery will be offering free cash 5 tickets with the purchase of a raffle ticket soon in an attempt to boost sales along with heavy advertising.  With sales so slow, they may not even put up the counter of the tickets remaining on their website or terminals.  If they don't break the 400K mark, I wonder if they will redo their early bird campaign or scrap the raffle all together for a while.
• Ron5995

  

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  Jun 27, 2017, 12:50 pm

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  PA will not extend. 299,460 tickets sold is break-even. Sales will near certain exceed that, so PA Lottery will still earn a profit, regardless.

  You're probably right about 375,000 or so being sold, though I could see it topping 425,000 with some promotion. Larger than usual in-state jackpots could help too. Cash-5 is at $1 million and Match-6 has grown to $4.8 million, which is the highest it's been in quite awhile.