MMC Game Show

Reply #26

Growler — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 07:43:56 GMT

The situation is beyond grim!

But I sincerely hope someone on this forum gets chosen to be on the show and reports back to us about it. You also may come across some inside info from a lottery down the line. I may buy one more ticket for next week (I know, famous last words) and stand down, with a $15 max investment. But the speculation and these exchanges here have already made the cost worth it, to me.

Reply #25

LottoMetro — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 07:24:44 GMT

Ugh screwed up again! Ignore the formula(s) above, because it does not include the fact that the percentage f is a proportion of the online percentage o.

Use this one instead (same variables):

Total entries = t*o*(103/14+10.3*f)

According to my calculations, if the lottery awards 6 winners and you have 40 entries, then based on 50% first-time entries and 500,000 tickets mentioned earlier, your lottery would have to have an online participation rate of a paltry 3.84% for your odds of goi... [ More ]

Reply #24

LottoMetro — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 06:28:48 GMT

Yes, sorry, that slipped my mind. I was so focused on the calculations it didn't click the first time you mentioned it

Adjusted formula (also simplified t, ran out of edit time in last post):

Total entries = t*((103/14)*o+10.3*f)

That's 5,701,786 for 500,000 tickets sold and using the percentages from earlier.

Wait, you ask, why is the total number of entries worse? Since 2 properties are awarded per ticket, it actually means the expected yield per ticket is twice as high.

So unl... [ More ]

Reply #23

Growler — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 06:17:21 GMT

And LottoMetro, I just wanted to restate to you ('cause I am not sure you ever acknowledged it) that every ticket purchased gets two properties (in addition to the Community Chest bonus on the first entry). Grengrad said: just divide the stated odds in half, given that fact.

I don't know if you're able to get access to any state lottery's numbers on who's entered/number of entries, etc.. so we may never know for sure. 85% sounds high to me. I think the people posting on FB, just by the fact t... [ More ]

Reply #22

LottoMetro — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 05:52:39 GMT

i could past the 40 entries you stated on less than the 600 tickets you figured out

Taurus, just wanted to reiterate that I made a mistake in my initial calculations....you will want to read grengrad's posts and mine thereafter. It is not quite as difficult to rack up many entries as originally believed, so the 600ish ticket figure was derived in error.

You're right, it's certainly worth the shot, and even if you don't get on the show at least you have fun trying for it!

For Maryland, I... [ More ]

Reply #21

Taurus$ — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 05:34:16 GMT

Lotto Metro,hey i have been looking at your calculations and Growlers theory of getting on the game show is where the the real challenge is for now. You both are correct about this and i saw this also. But guess what i have only gone thru the first two drawings and already have accumulated 36 entries on no more than 19 tickets and another 12 for the current upcoming drawing i could past the 40 entries you stated on less than the 600 tickets you figured out. I am in maryland so it seems interesti... [ More ]

Reply #20

LottoMetro — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 04:20:57 GMT

Word of caution about reading outside (i.e. publication) sources.....back during the summer, the lottery standard magazine published that the game would have a jackpot capped at $50 million. In all fairness, that was the original plan, but it changed, so the publication ended up looking a little foolish for jumping the gun.

Anyway, thanks for sharing what you've heard.

According to finalized internal documents, 3 players (not one) will be chosen from each of the 5 groups. It is possible th... [ More ]

Reply #19

Growler — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 03:34:34 GMT

Hey LottoMetro and anyone else who might be interested:

Did a little more research on the MMC game show. Some of the tidbits you can find online. In a USA Today story, one state lottery director is calling it a national premium product that was a result of the MUSL agreement between states to cross-sell MegaMillions and Powerball tickets. That's an interesting characterization, in the sense that the participating lotteries appear to be targeting a certain consumer.

But the better inf... [ More ]

Reply #18

LottoMetro — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 23:53:13 GMT

I went a step further and simulated the above using a utility of $1,000 for getting chosen to go to Vegas and a utility of $50,000 for getting on the show. This is subjective of course, at least until I can crunch the numbers on the expected returns for each of the games on the show.

For 1 ticket purchased (maximizes return), the total simulated return is:

100,000 tickets sold mean 7.92%, min 2.10%, max 22.51%

300,000 tickets sold mean 2.64%, min 0.62%, max 7.38%

500,000 tickets sold... [ More ]

Reply #17

LottoMetro — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 22:24:48 GMT

Getting back to MMC, I spent some time monkeying with my simulator. This seems like it would be better modeled using something like Markov chains with probabilities of a ticket purchase being entered online, being a first-time entry, etc. Unfortunately without access to those numbers such effort would be futile.

So instead, I set the proportion of entries to purchases as a lognormal distribution with minimum 5%, mean of 50%, and standard deviation of 10%. Similarly I set the proportion of Com... [ More ]

Reply #16

grengrad — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 20:49:06 GMT

Correct

Reply #15

LottoMetro — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 20:44:03 GMT

grengrad:

Thanks for posting the comparison. Nice to know I was right near target the second go around (didn't major in math in college)!

It does seem counter-intuitive but your explanation makes sense. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you set the sum of tickets for each property to 1/28 and multiplied the 10 lines of 1/28 (ten property groups) by the number of entries per group. Basically an expected value calculation. Alternatively, you can simply add up all the available entries (103) and... [ More ]

Reply #14

Tami333 — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 20:30:17 GMT

This was interesting under the FAQ's:

Q: Will trip drawing entries be retained for future drawings if they do not get picked?

A: No. Trip drawing entries are only eligible for the next drawing after they have been awarded. All entries are purged after each drawing.

So I am reading this as after the 1st drawing date of 12/02/2014, they will purge all previous entries and you need to start over for the 2nd chance drawings.

Reply #13

grengrad — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 19:28:51 GMT

Actually, our calculations are based on one property per ticket.

To correct for 2 properties per ticket you would just divide the tickets required in half.

For me, in NC, Cash 5 gets in the 600k-900k range every few months, with 1 in 575000ish odds. This yields an expected value over 100% of the ticket price. This and office pools for $300 million plus jackpots are where I put my lotto money.

Reply #12

Growler — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 19:10:33 GMT

Thanks again to both of you.

I just wanted to clarify one thing:

Grengrad said:

My bonus group was the same as my property. So, I got the set bonus, and still kept my original property. This combined with others results I have seen posted, implies that community chest is independent of the property you had on your ticket.

That part, I had always assumed. I meant the bonus property you get with every purchased ticket (independent of the Community Chest property set on the first s... [ More ]

Reply #11

grengrad — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 15:25:24 GMT

The correct value at infinite tickets is 3.67857 entries per ticket. My number was off, because I had railroads at 15 instead of 16.

I don't actually run a simulation for tickets at infinite tickets, because with any random distribution, if you truly do an infinite number of the events, you will have a perfectly even distribution. This seems counter intuitive, but by the definition of infinity, 1/28th of infinity, is still infinity, and one infinity is not bigger than another infinity.

I a... [ More ]

Reply #10

LottoMetro — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 14:34:01 GMT

Glad I have been of help, though sometimes mistaken or misinforming

On a side note, I ended up using another application for the big scenario and these are my results for mean entries per ticket (assuming I programmed it correctly):

3.5263 - 10,000 tickets @ 1000 trials

3.6321 - 100,000 tickets @ 100 trials

3.6628 - 1,000,000 tickets @ 48 trials (interrupted, got tired of waiting lol)

Doesn't matter much, but just thought I would include it as the results pretty much conf... [ More ]

Reply #9

Growler — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 12:50:42 GMT

LottoMetro and Grengrad,

Thank-you both for your feedback!

LottoMetro, that point you made about getting a player hooked via free entries is exactly why I came to this message board: to see if everyone playing was getting the max points possible at first.

Buy it seems like trying to get on the show is not really worth pursuing beyond a lark, even though I certainly did get a good start with the Boardwalk-Park Place pairings.

Anyway, the math is dizzying.

I'll only add a few poi... [ More ]

Reply #8

LottoMetro — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 11:18:15 GMT

grengrad:

A couple of things I noticed in your spreadsheet:

1) Your values for the railroads are incorrect....the set awards 16 entries, not 15.

2) The function you used, RANDBETWEEN produces continuous values. The distribution in the lottery is discrete. Not a big deal la central limit theorem.

P.S. What simulation application did you use? Or did you just run it through Excel like the example spreadsheet?

IMO 20 simulations is a little too few especially at lower purchase rates.

Reply #7

grengrad — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 09:36:49 GMT

Now, back to your original question.

It would take on average 21 tickets, to get 20 more entries.

You already bought 3 tickets, so you need to get 18 more for $90 more.

Those 20 additional entries, plus the 20 you have, would bring you to 40.

40 entries would give you a 1 in 12229 chance of getting on the show, if the math in the previous post is accurate.

If less people enter their tickets online, the better your changes get.

Reply #6

grengrad — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 09:16:30 GMT

Using the math above, existing ticket history for Georgia, projecting future tickets as similar to the most recent drawing, assuming 70% of tickets are entered online, that community chest is worth 10.2 entries, and that most people buy 10 tickets (even though it would probably be far less), we see that entries from regular purchases are not really a threat at all, but lots and lots of entries will be generated by first time players.

Buying 200 tickets for $1000 to get 505 entries, would give... [ More ]

Reply #5

LottoMetro — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 09:15:43 GMT

Grengrad:

You re probably right I crunched that off the top of my head because I m not on the PC that has my sim software (I might run some sims and post charts later). Where I made a mistake was being hasty and as you said, not considering that the player does not discard old tickets/properties (as you would in a truly independent event), but use them in conjunction of making a set.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I ve spent some time revie... [ More ]

Reply #4

grengrad — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 08:50:48 GMT

If you bought infinite tickets, the average yield would be 3.64286 entries per ticket.

Reply #3

grengrad — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 08:29:26 GMT

LottoMetro, I really respect your posts.

That said, your math for calculating entries is incorrect, because it doesn't take into account that the more tickets you have bought the more likely you are to be completing a set with each additional ticket.

The following is only based on entering the property off your ticket, and does not include community chest.

I created a spreadsheet to model the random distribution of ticket purchases for properties.

The more tickets you buy, the more e... [ More ]

Reply #2

LottoMetro — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 06:47:40 GMT

To start off, I did some quick calculations and now I understand why they included the Community Chest for new accounts.

I would wager if you get even 40 entries you will be VERY lucky (unless of course you buy many tickets).

Here's why:

In order to complete a property set you have to have entered codes for each property in the set. Because the property is QP, every ticket is independent. This means that your odds of getting any one property are 1 in 28 (unless the terminal is biased).... [ More ]

Reply #1

LottoMetro — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 04:21:41 GMT

It's funny that you posted this. I was just thinking about this yesterday when looking at sales for the game. I actually have not yet modeled this as I have been waiting to see how sales performed.

Personally, I think at least 2/3rds of players will enter the online entries. The number of tickets sold is conditional on a) people willing to pay $5, and b) people understanding how to play. Although it is obvious that many players still do not understand how to play, I believe the majority has a... [ More ]

MMC Game Show

Growler — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 02:57:05 GMT

Hello all. I've just joined and I have to say, before last week I couldn't tell you the last time I visited a lottery message board. It's possible I drove by years ago, but I couldn't even tell you when. But what got me to sign up and post is Monopoly Millionaires' Club. First, I want to say kudos to LottoMetro. It's clear that s/he (I'll assume it is a he unless told otherwise) has access to some great inside, really informative info and can post it to a degree without breaking confidentiality... [ More ]