Sold-out numbers

Reply #4

benmas — Sun, 18 May 2008 01:42:39 GMT

PA puts a $ maximum payout limit on the combined payouts (straight+box + pairs) for every number

combination...say for example the limit is $9,000,000...now your last statement is somewhat incorrect (that they dont pay out more than they take in)..maybe that would be the case for a parimutuel state but this example for 777 in PA indicates that the lottery lost money that day...

The payout to Daily Number game players for the April 30 nighttime drawing 777 totaled $8,957,250, more than 10

Reply #3

Badger — Sun, 18 May 2008 01:25:02 GMT

Remember, the states run the games in order to make a profit, not in order to have everybody win the games. So they have all kinds of safeguards in their software. Often its a limit on triples, but I think last year, for instance (or maybe it was the year before) when July 11th came around here, all the pick 3 players wanted to play 711. So many did that the combination became locked out. And the draw that year was 711 on July 11th. So the state had to pay their maximum outlay without losing mon... [ More ]

Reply #2

RJOh — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:30:06 GMT

States have a fixed limit on payouts for every lottery game. In their number games, when the amounts wagered on a certain combination would cause the payouts to exceed that limit if it was drawn, they stop accepting wagers on that combination. Even states that are not pari-mutuel will go that way on their other games (pick5 and jackpot) if payouts would exceed a certain limit.

Reply #1

pacattack05 — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:19:22 GMT

The states that have that rule in place do this in order to balance their books to ensure a profit zone.

These rules come in handy with popular numbers such as 666, 777, and 714. The lottery would lose money on those deals because so many people play those numbers so often, so it has no choice, but to regulate the payout accordingly.

Sold-out numbers

cadmill12 — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:26:20 GMT

What makes a number sold out