Return on Investment

Reply #14

Scratch-King — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:59:17 GMT

According to my calculation as stated in the earlier post, it's 59% for the traditional lottery games in NY. No matter if it's 59% or 65%, one things is clear; since the NY lottery commission states itself that the regular lottery draw games only payout 40% to 50% of sales in prizes, the only way they get to this higher overall level is through the higher prize payout percentages of the instant win games.

Reply #13

jaggudada — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:31:17 GMT

NY lottery told me 65% of the collection is paid out in terms of prizes. I haven't yet clarified whether that % is same for instant as well as regular lotto.

For $ 1 instant ticket, they usually print out 30 million tickets, not sure they are able to collect 30 million dollars as the games are closed out when all the top prizes are claimed. So there is lot of forcasting and estimation involved in it. granted that when they pull out games all the lower rank prizes will also seize to exist... [ More ]

Reply #12

RJOh — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:19:50 GMT

Most states have on their websites some where the rules and regulations put in place when they estashlished their lotteries. Most started out paying out 50% of sales in prizes, after all state lotteries were started as a way to raise money for the states.

Reply #11

Scratch-King — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:24:31 GMT

The percentage of sales distributed as prizes varies from state to state. In New York state, according to their latest full year results for their traditional lottery (doesn't include video gaming at casinos), they sold $6.76 billion in tickets and paid just under $4 billion in prizes. This works out to a little over 59% of revenue paid out in prizes.

This doesn't mean every game pays out 59% of its sales in prizes. Every game has a different payback percentage. The payback will vary in the r... [ More ]

Reply #10

jaggudada — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 23:41:19 GMT

Fellows,

My origional query was does lottery distribute the same amount in terms of prizes whether it is instant or regular lottery? I was told that number is 65%. Let me clarify this further let's say lottery prints $100 worth of tickets for a perticular game then the sum total of all prize money will be about $65. 35% of the money goes toward education, administration etc.

Reply #9

Scratch-King — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 05:05:46 GMT

It does happen occasionally if a large jackpot is still available but the majority of tickets have already been sold. It simply means there is more available in prize money than the total number of tickets multiplied by their cost.

Obviously, no game would payback more than 100% at the outset. But as the tickets are sold and the prizes claimed, it is possible for this situation to arise. It would have to be a game that started with a high payback to start with, such as 80+%.

I calculate th... [ More ]

Reply #8

Wooddrive — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:11:22 GMT

lol, payback ratio exceeds 100

Reply #7

Scratch-King — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:42:17 GMT

What you are really speaking of is the Payback Ratio of the instant games. This is the total value of all prizes divided by the total value of all tickets. This ratio varies depending on the price of the ticket and which state lottery is selling it.

Generally speaking, the higher the price of the ticket, the better the payback ratio. Of the six states I follow, it ranges from a low of about 40% on a $1 ticket to as high as 90% on a $20 ticket. This ratio also changes slightly everyday dependi... [ More ]

Reply #6

redhot7 — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:52:58 GMT

No. What I mean is that if you win like 100K from a lotto or a scratch off, the lottery is going to give the money to the winners the same way. A lump sum in this case.

Reply #5

Todd — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:48:34 GMT

Reply #4

Wooddrive — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:09:57 GMT

my belief is that scratchers have better percentage and good for a few dollars ( instant gratification). the reality of it is that if your not in the right place, you're never gonna win the jackpot. there might be 5 grand prizes left in the game but if the packs are being sent across the state ( who knows, random) you have zero chance of hitting.

on the other hand, online games like powerball, odds= lol. 3,4 picks are where you might be able to make money by reducing numbers and playing heav... [ More ]

Reply #3

jaggudada — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:49:07 GMT

Having said that, there is no difference with how the lottery pays scratch off or lotto prize for the same amount of dollars

Did you mean to say that 65% of the money is distributed in prizes regardless of whether it is scratch off or regular lotto

Reply #2

B$Rizzle — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:42:19 GMT

Keep in mind that most states have the Top Prizes remaining on their websites. Its always good to check this before buying scratchers. I do not play games with only one Top Prize remaining, simply because it may have already been sold

Reply #1

redhot7 — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:34:58 GMT

In my experience, I got around 76% of my money back from scratch off. With lotto, I got less than 4%.

Having said that, there is no difference with how the lottery pays scratch off or lotto prize for the same amount of dollars. Most scratch off prizes are less than 1 million dollars. Under most circumstances, prizes under 1 million dollars, either from scratch off or lotto, are paid in one lump sum.

Return on Investment

jaggudada — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:07:28 GMT

I have read this somewhere and I want forum members to corroborate whether this understanding correct or not. In case of Scratch off lottery, 65% of the collection is paid out in terms of prizes. In case of draw type of lottery, it is around 40%. Which means chances of winning at least some amount with scratch off is better.

The only draw back of scratch lottery is you may be buying tickets with the hope of hitting jackpot(top prize) when the jackpot ticket might have been sold out but i... [ More ]