Overstating the Jackpot

Reply #8

Bingo Long — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 04:12:57 GMT

Nope. For most of the legal non-casino betting in the US, (including all dog/horse racing and every jackpot-based lottery game I know of), the rules state that the house takes a fixed percentage of the amount bet, and the rest goes into the prize pool. The idea is that the lottery/racing commission shouldn't have a stake in the outcome of the race/lottery. This works well for racing, but for the lottery there's still the problem that if no one hits a $150m jackpot, the lottery commission will ma... [ More ]

Reply #7

Blalron — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 22:08:11 GMT

Interesting. I thought they only advertised the amount of money they had on hand instead of what they expect the next drawing will bring them. I thought that if they advertised a 200 million jackpot and it hit and they got say 30 million extra in sales they'd just pocket that 30 million for themselves...

Reply #6

DoctorEw220 — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:56:54 GMT

hence why CA offers such a high estimated jackpot.

Reply #5

JAG331 — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 19:58:44 GMT

Thanks Bingo,I guess it only makes sense that they would advertise as high an amount as possible.

Reply #4

Bingo Long — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 02:59:10 GMT

They've got a model that says, at $x estimated jackpot level, we'll sell $y = f($x) tickets, which means the jackpot will increase by $z = g($x). If $w is the previous jackpot, then they get the equation $x = $w + g($x), and they solve for x.For games like Mega Millions the function is fairly smooth (though perhaps there are psychological boundaries at things like $100m or $113m), but this gets interesting for games like MA's Cash Winfall, where ticket sales double when the estimated jackpot i... [ More ]

Reply #3

JAG331 — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 02:35:29 GMT

No no that's not what I mean.Let's say the previous drawing was for $230 million. Now, if the advertised jackpot is $290 million, sales might be right on target. But what if you advertised that jackpot at $305 million, would that boost sales enough to add $15 million to the jackpot? How far can a lottery stretch their advertised jackpot

Reply #2

LOTTOMIKE — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 06:52:45 GMT

they just round the figures to the nearest digit.....

Reply #1

Tnplayer805 — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 04:13:05 GMT

Those are estimated Jackpots. Powerball said 19 Million for Saturday Night. The jackpot was only 18.7. In other words not enough tickets sales to support a whole 19 million. Sometimes it can be underestimated. Like when the $25.5 million jackpot was won here in TN. It was only up to $25 million, however, they underestimated the ticket sales so they upped the jackpot by $1/2 million.

Overstating the Jackpot

JAG331 — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 02:40:43 GMT

I wonder what rules govern jackpot advertising. Friday's Mega Millions jackpot was $102 million. Now, if it had been advertised at $97 million, maybe sales would've been only enough to give away $97 million, not $102 million. Does a significant factor exist where a lottery can advertise a higher jackpot, and see sales increase because of it? How truthful does the lottery need to be? I guess this would apply most at high level jackpots.