Arizona Lottery bans Fast Play bulk ticket purchases

Comment #20

Brock Lee — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 03:34:57 GMT

thanks for the explanation. i see on the az lottery website what you're talking about now. strange that they don't also limit scratchers sales for the same reason.

Comment #19

Wavepack — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 22:36:23 GMT

Fast Plays are Scratcher-like games (some are duplicates of scratcher games) except instead of card, the play ticket is generated on the fly by the kiosk and replaces the play card. This opens up a number of security vulnerabilities in my mind if you have physical access to hack and reverse engineer a machine. I think they are putting too much confidence in a TPM chip securing the boot sequence.

Some Fast Plays have progressive jackpots (9 of 36 games currently). A person can calculate the p... [ More ]

Comment #18

goldfish777 — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 18:39:10 GMT

I'm a semi new Texas resident and the whole carrier freeze left me baffled, thanks so much for this refreshing breakdown.

Comment #17

Brock Lee — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 04:37:56 GMT

those of us who don't live in arizona might need clarification about what 'fast play' is. is it a standalone game, an add on game, a synonym for quick pick? why are they limiting fast play bulk purchases but not other kinds of bulk purchases? what's special about bulk buying fast play compared to bulk buying mega millions or powerball

Comment #16

dickblow — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 17:04:10 GMT

dont tell me how to buy my lottery tickets

Comment #15

Wavepack — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 15:01:56 GMT

9 out of 36 Fast Games show a progressive jackpot. And for whatever reason, the jackpot estimate shows up now when I visited the arizonalottery.com website. Go figure.

My main points were

Anti-buyout rules make more sense for Pick6 and Fantasy5, where the player picks the numbers and so can guarantee a buyout of all possibilities. Currently, AZ has no such anti-buyout rules for Pick6 and Fantasy5. So, AZ is highly inconsistent with their anti-buyout rules. They should have rolled out an... [ More ]

Comment #14

winterhug — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:01:19 GMT

Dude what are you talking about? Apparently you don't know what a Fast Play ticket is. Fast Play tickets print out of the lottery terminal or a lottery vending machine. YOU instantly know if you have won or not by looking at the ticket or scanning it. There are NO waiting until the numbers are drawn. Arizona feels that there is a problem with some people trying to buy up all the Fast Play tickets in the Progressive games, which are jackpots that continually grow until someone wins. In my area of... [ More ]

Comment #13

KY Floyd — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 08:18:07 GMT

I would guess the lottery has determined mathematically that there is a chance somebody could purchase the jackpot once it grows to a certain size through bulk purchases.

I'm not sure if the decision was based on normal probability. I don't know how the game works, but if all tickets are quick picks the probability of getting duplicate combinations will work the same way it does for other games unless it's not based on matching combinations as with other games.

Even if tickets are quick... [ More ]

Comment #12

Todd — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 13:58:00 GMT

As you have noted, the Tax corrections act of 2025 (SB1274) clarifies that Arizona lottery winnings are taxed at the highest state income tax rate, which is a flat 2.5%. I can't see where it indicates that it does not go into effect until September, but for the purposes of the analysis I will assume that this tax bill, like most others, is retroactive from the beginning of 2025. Also, any tax attorney worth their weight in salt would have the winner delay their jackpot claim until after the enac... [ More ]

Comment #11

SoCola — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 02:27:53 GMT

Hey Todd related adjacent to the Arizona Lottery, you have the tax rate for AZ on the analysis page set at 2.5% That's the income tax rate but lottery winnings are currently taxed at 4.5% for AZ residents and 6% out of state residents

They passed the tax correction act in May so lottery winnings will be taxed at 2.5% but not until mid September

Comment #10

noise-gate — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 01:59:17 GMT

* Whatsoever happened to the notion that winning the lottery is a game of chance

Comment #9

Bleudog101 — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 01:05:31 GMT

Kind of strange here that Fast Play is listed for on line games...yet you can't purchase them apparently unless @ the store. Many different games listed with different jackpots. At the lottery machine on the ever so slow to get displayed jackpot screen Fast Play does show the largest jackpot from what I can gather. (KY).

Comment #8

Wavepack — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:57 GMT

AZ has no rules to prevent a buyout of the Pick6 or Fantasy5 AZ lotteries, where the jackpot estimate is published.

Only a few Fast Play games have progressive jackpots, and in those games, the jackpots aren't published (at least, they don't show up on the arizonalottery.com website) , and play numbers/symbols are machine chosen and not player chosen.

Since Fast Play buyouts only make sense when the jackpot estimate is known, and when the number of tickets purchased give a high enough e... [ More ]

Comment #7

Bleudog101 — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 22:53:05 GMT

Is Fast Play the same in AZ as it is in KY? Here you know right away if you won, when ticket prints you scan it. We don't have drawings for our Fast Play. It, like Keno, is an RNG game.

Please address my concerns with AZ Fast Play.

Comment #6

spartan1707 — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 21:41:37 GMT

Total BS.....open and transparency. Total scam. Drawings are at 7pm yet they don't release results till close to 8pm or later. Switching to a computer random generator has allowed them to scam the player. I truly believe they are using the system to pick the least pick numbers to ensure the house wins. They claim all the nu5are in the system but certain numbers haven't been drawn in years. They have multiple repeating numbers mainly doubles for pick3 drawings along with currently no triple drawn... [ More ]

Comment #5

johnnyBlaze — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 19:12:03 GMT

Personally, I don't think anyone even buys bulk Fast Plays as it doesn't make sense mathematically. Fast Plays are like slot machines which are intended to give the house an 80%+ advantage. Jackpots on the other hand have fixed odds -- the more combinations you play the more you're likely to win.

So gonna wait and see if the AZ Lottery gives any explanation for the reasoning behind the decision.

Comment #4

Todd — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 18:46:34 GMT

I would guess the lottery has determined mathematically that there is a chance somebody could purchase the jackpot once it grows to a certain size through bulk purchases. Even if tickets are quick picks, there will only be a certain smallish number that would overlap. So if they had lets say 5 or 10 percent of tickets that overlapped, they still might make a profit. I don't know the exact numbers, but I trust the lottery would make the rule in light of something they discovered.

The fact tha... [ More ]

Comment #3

johnnyBlaze — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 16:23:59 GMT

Aren't the Fast Play tickets only computer generated? Or am I missing something?

The problem with bulk purchasing like in case of Lotto Texas came from a group buying up individual combinations which were manually entered. On the contrary, Fast Play tickets are computer generated so there's no way to ensure an individual or group can actually cover all the combinations.

So while it helps to some extent to even out the odds, it doesn't really make any significant difference like the AZ Lo... [ More ]

Comment #2

Bleudog101 — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 14:26:54 GMT

Glad I read the whole article before commenting. Yes, this is good legislation to protect regular players

Comment #1

Todd — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 12:41:47 GMT

Congratulations to the Arizona Lottery for instituting this rule. This is exactly what we have been advocating for the past year, when the situation in Texas starting cropping up, and officials there wrongly blamed courier services.

We strongly advocated for a bulk ticket limit to solve all these issues back in October of 2024: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/352288

Instead of doing that, the Texas Lottery doubled down on wrongly blaming couriers and banned them . The predictable resul... [ More ]

Arizona Lottery bans Fast Play bulk ticket purchases

Lottery Post — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 12:27:34 GMT

Lottery will not pay out prizes to players engaging in excessive purchasing

By Kate Northrop

The Arizona Lottery approved a rule amendment banning bulk Fast Play ticket purchases in an effort to curb excessive purchasing in a given timeframe.

In June, the Arizona Lottery Commission announced that it implemented new rules to limit the value of Fast Play tickets either an individual or group can buy within a certain period of time.

The rule, titled Prohibition of Bulk Ticket Purch... [ More ]