LottoGroups's Blog

Todd has told me that I am not allowed to promote my lottery groups on this board.

Therefore this is my last post or blog entry.

Goodbye and good luck.

Lotto Groups - the best way to win

The Lottery Group website address has changed. See my profile for the new address. The home page of the old address also contains the new address.

I decided to buy my own domain name. They are becoming so inexpensive.

Lotto Groups - the best way to win.

I have some a preliminary sales numbers for the Millionaire Life lottery being held across Canada. I also have the estimated total sales numbers and have used them to calculate the expected value.

As of February 13, just under 12 million tickets were sold. There was a surge in sales as the February 14 early bird cutoff approached. I estimate that sales up to and including February 14 will be 14 million.

The lottery jurisdictions have predicted that total sales for the month will be 18 million. I have used that number to calculate the expected value.

When buying 7 tickets for $20 ($2.86 each), the expected value is 55%.

When buying 3 tickets for $10 ($3.33 each), the expected value is 47%.

When buying 1 ticket for $5, the expected value is 32%.

Naturally, the highest expected value is for the least expensive tickets.

I also calculated which prize levels contributed the most towards the expected value. I will use the 7 tickets for $20 price point and 55% expected value to make the comparisons.

The jackpot prize of $17 million contributed an expected value of 33%.

The next largest expected value of 8% came from the 4 $1 million prizes.

The next largest was 7% from the $20 prize for matching the last 2 numbers.

The early bird prizes did not contribute a large amount at only 4%. The reason being is that the bulk of the tickets were estimated to be sold prior to the early bird deadline and the prizes are only $100,000.

Therefore it is still a good idea to buy tickets after the early bird cutoff. The expected value is still good at 51%. That is only if the 7 tickets for $20 options is exercised.

On that note, there are still shares available for Millionaire Life Group Two. The group is limited to 17 shares. With a guarantee that there will be only one winner, then one share in the group can win $1 million.

Lotto Groups - the best way to win

As promised earlier, I went over all the old Mega Millions draws to see if the current jackpot level was a roll record. I started checking when the jackpot was at the $106 million level suspecting that was a record. I did not get completed until the jackpot reached the $130 million level. I thought for sure that level would produce a record.

I was surprised to discover that neither were records.

The $106 million jackpot was reached after 9 rolls. The 9 roll record is $138 million. Not even close.

The $130 million jackpot was reached after 10 rolls. The 10 roll record is $162 million. Again not even close.

I guess sales were much higher for Mega Millions in the past. There needs to be a very large Mega Millions jackpot before sales go back up to their old levels. But then again that may never happen. We may never see those roll records broken.

This observation falls in line with one of the current Lottery Post News stories about jackpot fatigue.

There has been some interest. Therefore I have started a second Millionaire Life lottery group.

Group Two will have the same rules as Group One with one exception. With Group Two, all prizes will be split except for the Early Bird prizes. The Early Bird prizes, if won, will be awarded to individual members depending upon which ticket won.

The purpose of this rule is to accommodate the situation where a person joins the group after the early bird cutoff. With this rule, only the late person suffers and not the whole group.

I would be interested in people's comments on this rule even if you are not interesting in joining the group.

Lotto groups - the best way to win.

The new group for Millionaire Life raffle is full at 17 shares. All the tickets have been bought before the early bird cutoff and qualify for the 14 $100,000 additional early bird prizes.

I have not decided yet on whether to start a new group. I will wait and see if there is enough interest.

Now that the Mega Millions jackpot has gone over $100 million, I am going to try to figure out if that is a new record based upon the number of rolls it took to reach that level. I did that exercise a couple of weeks ago for the Powerball lottery. The Powerball did in fact break a record.

It is a time consuming exercise to go over all the archives. I will take a stab at it in my spare time and will report back soon. I am more interested though on when Mega Millions reaches the very large jackpot levels of around $300 million. But by going over the old drawings now I will be better prepared for when the jackpot is very large.

There are now 2 shares left. There was a quick flurry of interest at first when most of the shares were sold. I had expected to have to start a second group. Interest has slowed down now, so I will probably be sticking to one group.

By the way, the maximum number of shares were set to set 17 because the jackpot is $17 million cash.

I will check next week on how sales are going to try to estimated the group's probability of winning a first or second place prize.

The new Millionaire Life game is turning out to be popular. I have sold 14 shares leaving only 3 shares left. Check out my home page for current status.

I am thinking of starting a second group.

The Canadian provincial lotteries have combined forces to offer a new raffle game. It is called Millionaire Life and the top prize is $1 million per year for 25 years or a cash payout of $17 million. And becuase this is offered in Canada, the money is all tax free.

There is an interesting price point. One ticket for $5, 3 tickets for $10 and 7 tickets for $20. Personally, I would either buy none or 7 tickets. At $20, the 7 tickets cost less than $3 each compared to $5 for one.

I am starting a new lottery group to buy Millionaire Life tickets. I am limiting the number of shares to 17 and the cost per share is $20. This way if we win, each share wins $1 million.

I am going to add a new twist to this group. Each set of 7 tickets will be assigned to a share (member). We will only split the cash prize of $17 million if we win. All secondary prizes will be won by the individual assigned the winning ticket.

The secondary prizes are substantial. They are $20, $100,000 and $1 million.

Let me know if you are interested. I already have 7 shares sold leaving only 10 shares available. The draw is on February 28. The tickets are on sale for only 4 weeks.

For more details on the new game, see:

http://www.wclc.com/games/Millionaire_Life.html

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Police have arrested the young widow of a multimillionaire lottery winner while prosecutors decide whether to charge her with his killing, a crime that has gripped the country and generated public fury against a woman viewed as a ruthless gold digger.

Brazilian newspapers on Wednesday ran front-page photos of Adriana Almeida, wearing a tight T-shirt and wraparound designer sunglasses, being escorted to jail from a hotel in a luxury seaside community near Rio.

The former hairdresser, who married Renne Senna, 54, after he hit the jackpot, was greeted by cries of "Tramp!" and "Murderer!" as she arrived Tuesday at the lockup. Police spokesman Marcele Mendes said she will be held for at least 30 days,

During that time, prosecutors will evaluate the police investigation and determine whether to ask a judge to charge Almeida. Globo TV reported Wednesday that police are also looking for four men suspected of involvement in the killing.

Almeida, 29, was the girlfriend of Senna, a former subsistence farmer and butcher, before he became rich. Senna, who had part of both legs amputated because of diabetes, got around town on a special, motorized four-wheel cart.

In July 2005, Senna was the sole winner of a national lottery worth the equivalent of about C$28 million.

He bought a sprawling ranch in Rio Bonito, a rural town 75 kilometres northeast of Rio, and married Almeida.

Senna's family accused Almeida of pressuring Senna to change his will, removing 11 brothers and sisters as potential beneficiaries.

Senna wrote a new will leaving the money only to Almeida and a daughter, Renata. Some local news media reported that Almeida had said her husband doubted whether he was Renata's real father and planned DNA testing to confirm his paternity.

He never got the chance.

On Jan. 7, two hooded men on a motorcycle pulled up to a bar in Rio Bonito where Senna usually went for a beer, eight kilometres from his ranch. Senna was shot four times in the head, and the hooded men sped away.

Five days later, Almeida was summoned to a police interrogation and swore she was innocent. A furious crowd surrounded the police station in Rio Bonito and reportedly tried to lynch her. Police dispersed the crowd by firing into the air.

She has denied local media reports that she had affairs with other men.

"I'm innocent. What they're doing to me is cowardice," she told Rio's O Globo newspaper after her arrest.

Well we now have our answer. The $314.9 million, 16 roll record jackpot will not be broken on this run. A record that has stood for over 4 years.

The 15 roll record was smashed though. It now stands at $254 million. The previous record was $221.5 set under the old matrix. The 15 roll record that was set under the current Powerball matrix was $213 million.

I will keep all the information I gathered from the Powerball archives for the next time the Powerball jackpot gets large.

Now time to focus on Mega Millions. Once the Mega Millions jackpot gets large, I will go over the archives to find out if it breaks any records.

I went back over the Powerball archives a second time, carefully recording the roll numbers and jackpot levels. And yes, the Jack W jackpot of $314.9 million was in fact a record for 16 rolls. This record may be broken if the Powerball jackpot rolls tonight.

The 16 roll record was set over 4 years ago, December 2002. According to Jack, it took him 4 years to lose all his money. Also interesting to note is that the record was set under the old Powerball matrix with lower odds to win the jackpot.

I also found the 15 roll record at $221.5 million. It was also set under the old matrix and one year ofter the Jack W record - in December of 2003. This record will definitely be broken tonight given the estimated jackpot is $240 milion.

These are fairly old records and were due to be broken.

Will this run break the all-time Powerball record of $365 million?

Time to start a new Powerball group.

I do not normally follow the Powerball lottery. I usually follow the Mega Millions lottery even though I rarely play it. A while back there was a member in one of my lottery groups who lived in a Powerball state. He would buy Powerball tickets for our group in exchange for membership in the group. We did not win anything but it was a convenient arrangement for him and the group.

Well Powerball has rolled 15 times and must be getting close to record territory. I checked over the Powerball draw archives and saw that the famous Jack W jackpot was won on the 16th roll and the jackpot reached $314.9 million. I believe that is a record jackpot value for 16 rolls. If the jackpot rolls on Wednesday, I believe it will break that record since it is now estimated at $240 million.

Interac is one of the easiest ways to transfer money between Canadian bank accounts. I have added a link to the Interac site (https://www.certapay.com/en/) on the home page of our lottery groups site.

It is also one of the cheapest and securest ways to transfer money. The sender's banking information is not exposed. There is no need to know the recipient's bank or bank account number. All that is needed to send money is the recipient's email address.

I find it easier and much cheaper than PayPal. Unfortunately it appears to only work with Canadian Banks. I am encouraging all my Canadian members to use the service.

Of course, everyone still has the option to use any of the other available methods such as:

• pay in person
• use PayPal
• mail a check or money order

Lotto Groups - the best way to win