Input Playing the Various 6-49 Games

Reply #36

RJOh — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 16:36:37 GMT

This just shows how close a lottery player can come to being a mult-millionaire at time with a little luck. That's what keeps me playing.

Reply #35

RJOh — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 16:01:30 GMT

I hope it's just people being lucky but it does make you wonder.

Luck would dictate that normally there would be one lucky winner for every fourteen millions lines sold but if there are more than that then they're not only lucky but smart too. There's nothing wrong with playing smart.

Reply #34

Crazy Wombat — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 13:22:37 GMT

I hope it's just people being lucky but it does make you wonder. I had five tickets and had three numbers on three tickets ... no money won. The three numbers on each ticket were not across the straight line of numbers but scattered all over the ticket. You need four numbers that way to get $2.00 back ... however, I did have a lot of numbers that were one off or above and below.

It is so easy to pick or get those kind of hits ... one number off! ... if I could just figure out how to tweak the... [ More ]

Reply #33

RJOh — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 12:26:45 GMT

Sounds like a few players in PA have its 6/49 game figured out. Ohio's Classic Lotto(6/49) is at $10.5M and continues to climb $100K+ per drawing.

Maybe I'm getting closer to figuring it out. Last night with 10 lines on the prediction board I had 3 of the winning numbers in one line and the other 3 in another line, now if I could only get them all in the same line.

RJOh Ohio Classic Lotto 3 of 6 05-16-19-22-29-42 16-19-25-29-39-48 $5

RJOh Ohio Classic Lotto 3 of 6 03-25-30-33-39-48 1... [ More ]

Reply #32

Crazy Wombat — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 09:13:12 GMT

I just thought I would post regarding the PA 6/49 game. The current jackpot was again approaching $2 million and last night (Dec 15) at around 1.5 million the Match 6 jackpot was hit again ... so it's back to $500,000 and the slow climb to a million and beyond.

It just can't get to $2 million anymore, the last three or four hits have all been under the $2 million mark ... $4 million used to be jackpot hit point over the last two years or so but now it seems to be under $2 million. Also it alw... [ More ]

Reply #31

RJOh — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:35:32 GMT

I' had forgotten he brought that many tickets.

http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/10/2004/2004-Ohio-5576.pdf

Reply #30

Stack47 — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:07:22 GMT

John W. Struna purchased and matched all five numbers on 52 Buckeye 5 tickets. There were 53 winning tickets, but the Ohio Lottery Commission decided to pay the player with the one winning ticket $100,000 and Struna unsuccessfully sued. Each of his winning tickets paid $18,666.

The store owner testified he told Struna several times there was a $1 million cap and even showed him the game rules. The case was in court for over two years.

Reply #29

RJOh — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 15:54:08 GMT

It all depends on your playing strategy, for some players one line is enough and for others 20 lines is not.

Reply #28

GiveFive — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 01:59:25 GMT

The simple answer to your question is yes, it was capped.

It was capped because the JP did not roll, it was a fixed 1 million dollars. Each and every drawing had a JP of 1 million. The first five winners of the JP were not pari-mutuel, meaning if five different players each had all six winning numbers, then they'd each receive one million before taxes. But that never happened once in the entire four and half years the game existed. I can remember two times when there were two JP winners, and... [ More ]

Reply #27

Crazy Wombat — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 01:35:18 GMT

Lots of posts here since this morning ... lots of good reading with new ideas about some games. I have comments and some questions so I am going to put everything in one post to everyone who posted earlier.

RJ0h ... that game Lot'0 Play ... I could not find anything in Google except that it was a $2 game ... you posted 6/100 ... I can't believe that, a person had to pick 6 numbers out of 100 to win ... 49 numbers are hard enough, was it popular, for $2 I don't think I would have been playing... [ More ]

Reply #26

maringoman — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 23:53:59 GMT

If Megabucks Doubler had jackpots that rose to over $20 like the OCL does I think I'd play 10 lines.

Reply #25

RJOh — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 22:57:09 GMT

I too play our local 6/49 game picking 10 lines using a system but I don't call it wheeling. I usually end up using 30-35 of the 49 numbers and posting them on the prediction board.

Reply #24

RJOh — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 22:49:42 GMT

I wish I could lay claim to coming up with the idea of playing 2 identical lines on my SM ticket, but I can't. It occurred to me to do that after I saw on The NY Lottery's website that a guy from a town not too far from me accidentally used the same bet slip twice, and won the jackpot on each of his two tickets. Since the JP wasn't shared for the first 5 winners of it, that guy accidentally won 2 million bucks!

Did that game have a cap on its payout? When Ohio had Buckey5(5/37), its top prize... [ More ]

Reply #23

Ron5995 — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 22:30:02 GMT

PA Cash 5 is easier than larger jackpot games, but still not all that easy to win much at. I too have experienced long runs of losses with that game. The odds of matching just two numbers is 1 in 11. So it's not surprising, though disheartening, to play for an entire week and win little to zilch.

Playing Cash 5 for an entire month at $5 per day is worth a try, but plan for the real possibility of only winning back little as $25 of your $150. I still say go for it, since the combined odds of h... [ More ]

Reply #22

GiveFive — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 22:22:36 GMT

The New York Lottery's official position on Sweet Million was that they retired it. In other words, they just ended it with no replacement game.

Sweet Milly did have it's downside, in that the lower tier prizes were just awful. Second prize was 500 bucks for hitting 5 out of 6 numbers!! That's ridiculous, and you could win that same amount far more easily by playing one of NY's Daily Numbers game, Pick 3. So in a sense, The NY Lottery was competing directly with itself.

Sweet was unlike P... [ More ]

Reply #21

maringoman — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 22:09:34 GMT

I forgot to mention that it costs $1 per bet/line. When I say I wheel I don't mean the serious kind. Actually I don't even think it is true wheeling what I do. I start out with a key combo 03 12 17 28 41 44 then replace each number by a number that jumps into my head. So for example a 5 line combo would look like this

03-12-17-28-41-44

05-12-17-28-41-44

03-11-17-28-41-44

03-12-23-28-41-44

03-12-17-36-41-44

No matter how lucky I feel I never buy more than 5 lines a drawing and... [ More ]

Reply #20

RJOh — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 19:10:12 GMT

Years ago when Ohio had its Super Lotto (6/49+1), it had winners and players from all the surrounding states including PA. At the time Ohio increased its jackpot by $2-$4M after each drawings but all went south when surrounding states added PB and BigGame to their games. Ohio discontinued SuperLotto and replaced it with Lot'O Play(6/100) and later replaced it with Classic Lotto(6/49). Ohio finally added PB and MM not to complete with its local games but to get people interested in playing lotter... [ More ]

Reply #19

Crazy Wombat — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 16:01:21 GMT

Yes I would check the tickets sold for MM and PB and now the new Monopoly game at lotto report Texas ... I will check the site that you mentioned ... never heard of it.

I just now checked the Texas site and I see at the bottom it's the site you are talking about.

Very good site for information. Laying off the MM and PB for now as of Nov and playing the new Monopoly game for a month maybe. See how it plays out.

Reply #18

RJOh — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 15:50:07 GMT

... in PA lately at least this year, it seems to be every month or two. That's why I have been wondering if people have dropped the MM and PB and decided to go with Match 6 ... I have no clue, only the Lottery knows for sure where the money is going.

Most state lottery publish the past drawings of their games along with their payout amounts which should give you an idea of the number of tickets sold. That information will probably include the payout amounts for PB and MM too, if not then you... [ More ]

Reply #17

Crazy Wombat — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 15:48:54 GMT

I was also thinking about the population difference between Ohio and PA but I didn't check any numbers. Those number differences aren't too drastic. Just more people playing these days maybe ...

Yes I will buy other raffle tickets from other states if I happen to be in the area but that's not often. That Sweet Milly game sure sounded like a winner ... did they replace it with another game or just end it?

I have some Match 6 jackpot dates written down ... this may have been the largest Matc... [ More ]

Reply #16

Crazy Wombat — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 13:01:34 GMT

Thanks for posting about your MA game ... that's a decent prize for 5 out of 6 numbers. The 6/49 game in PA also starts at $500,000 and usually jumps $50,000 for awhile and then $100,000 when it really starts growing faster.

I didn't go to the MA Lottery site ... I'm guessing a ticket cost $1. When you say wheel the numbers for a 6/49 game, that's an interesting strategy. In PA I take the most hit numbers over the last 50 draws and work several tickets and and run the same numbers through twi... [ More ]

Reply #15

Crazy Wombat — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 12:04:13 GMT

Thanks for your thoughts on the various games ... I also like the Cash 5 with the low odds under one million, I liked the game better when it only had 39 numbers. It should be easier to win on that game but I just can't win any money ... last week I played it for 7 days through this past Sunday ... as usual I can almost get one number every night and then I will have one or two numbers just off by one. I get so mad that I can rarely win even a dollar let alone four numbers or the jackpot.

Thi... [ More ]

Reply #14

GiveFive — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 11:26:05 GMT

To me personally, the odds are where it's at.

IMHO, playing the lottery is a sucker bet. It's incredibly hard to win a life changing amount of money. That's why when I play PB or MM, I'm really playing for second place. Because of that, whenever I play, I always buy the Megaplier or Power Play. I also used to play two identical lines on my Sweet Million tickets because the first 5 winners of a JP were NOT pari-mutuel. So if I had all six numbers on both of those lines, I'd have won two millio... [ More ]

Reply #13

GiveFive — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 11:13:02 GMT

What RJ0h posted about Ohio and the 6/49 there climbing to around 70 million over three years ... I followed that earlier this year and read when it finally got hit ... yet in PA our 6/49 can ever hardly reach 5 million ... more like 2 to 3 million and someone hits it.

My initial thoughts were that PA has a much larger population than Ohio, and therefore that's the reason PA's 6/49 is hit more frequently. I checked on that, and found that PA does have a larger population than Ohio, but PA and... [ More ]

Reply #12

maringoman — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 04:08:56 GMT

In MA we have a 6/49 game called Megabucks Doubler.Top prize jp starts at $0.5M and it crawls slowly to $2M at which point I start playing. The match 5 of 6 pays $2,500, match 4 of 6 pays $100 and match 3 of 6 pays $2. I usually try to wheel numbers on this game but so far nothing good has come up for me. The jackpot gets hit about 3 times every year which means it's a popular local game

Reply #11

Ron5995 — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 01:59:07 GMT

I hadn't noticed the recent Treasure Hunt number dup. Darn amazing, though not as difficult as it would seem based on the birthday paradox . Treasure Hunt is also the game that had 1-2-3-4-5 come up several years back. Goes to show any combination, assuming a properly functioning randomizer, is equally possible.

Match 6 is a fun game to play, but is a deceptively difficult game to win much with. I occasionally buy a few for something different. Easy to match a few numbers, plus matching numbe... [ More ]

Reply #10

Crazy Wombat — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 00:58:11 GMT

OK ... but with NY being a pretty good gambling state I guess like you said ... Sweet Millions wasn't that interesting to most of them. I always look at the odds of any game in relation to the prize amount ... odds probably don't mean much to many people, just the jackpot amount ... low odds, high odds the games are nearly impossible to hit but better odds give me some hope for something.

What RJ0h posted about Ohio and the 6/49 there climbing to around 70 million over three years ... I follo... [ More ]

Reply #9

GiveFive — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 21:43:25 GMT

The reason JP's aren't hit as frequently at the lower numbers as they are at the higher numbers is a function of what's know in the lottery business as coverage . I was alluding to it in my post above about NY's Sweet Million. The NY Lottery freely admitted Sweet Milly under-performed due to a coverage problem .

The fewer tickets sold, the fewer combo's sold. Which leaves more combo's uncovered (unsold) than covered. As the JP grows, more tickets (combo's) are sold, fewer combo's go uncovere... [ More ]

Reply #8

GiveFive — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 21:31:19 GMT

It was a dollar a line and it was a cash prize. After taxes the few people that did win a Jackpot netted about $664,000.

Another reason people didn't play it was because it seemed to them that Nobody ever wins that game . Which was true enough, but what people failed to realize was that the number of combo's covered out of the 3.8 million possible combo's was about 10%. (Meaning 383,000 of the 3.83 million possible combo's were played, leaving 90% of the possible combo's uncovered, or un-play... [ More ]

Reply #7

RJOh — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 19:22:34 GMT

Ohio has a 6/49 game called Classic Lotto which has had 1234 drawings since it replaced the Lot'O game and has three drawings a week . Its jackpots start at $1M and is now almost $10M with a cash value of 50%. I matched 5/6 last year which I also had posted on the prediction board but haven't come closer than a match4 since. CL pays $2 for a match3, $70 for a match4 and $1500 for a match5. The last time it was won it had rolled to almost $70M having gone three years without a hit.

Reply #6

haymaker — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 14:55:09 GMT

Crazy Wombat, cool name !

Jersey has a 6/49 game called pick 6, it draws 2 times a week,

far as I know there's no discount for multiple lines.

JP starts a @ 2 MILs.

I play a QP every draw and the JP grows painfully slow, only hits about 4 times a year.

I think the MM and PB have hurt this game as well as other 6/... games, seems people are only interested in the really big $

I only play MM and PB when the JP has grown to near record size,

not being greedy, just don't t... [ More ]

Reply #5

Crazy Wombat — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 13:23:49 GMT

I remember reading a little about that game awhile back ... I didn't know it had ended and didn't know it was a 6/40 game. How much did it cost ... maybe only a dollar? Sounds like it was interesting with those lower odds ... the 6/49 game in PA is getting hit more frequently or so it seems and it grows very slowly ... on Thursday it will be 1.3 million ... so the Sweet Millions game with the lower odds for a million dollar prize seems like a winner ... I would have played it.

Did you win a m... [ More ]

Reply #4

GiveFive — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 13:01:25 GMT

New York had a 6/40 game but they retired it this past June due to lack of player interest.

Odds were 3,838,383 to 1. It was named Sweet Million. The jackpot was fixed at 1 million dollars, it did not grow. It was not pari-mutuel for the first five winners of a million dollars, but they never had a case where 5 people won the jackpot in the same drawing.

I think what killed it was the lower tier prizes (500 bucks for 5 numbers) and the fact that the jackpot didn't roll if not hit. Players... [ More ]

Reply #3

Crazy Wombat — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 12:36:55 GMT

I decided to bring this back to get a few questions answered ... I can only figure that there might not be much interest in a 6/49 game ... people would rather put their money on the MM and PB for the larger jackpots.

As I have lost interest in the larger harder to hit jackpot games, over the last year I have paid more attention to the 6/49 game in PA ... slowly moving more money over to play that game.

I said earlier that I had spent some time on the computer checking out other various st... [ More ]

Reply #2

Crazy Wombat — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 17:25:48 GMT

I don't know about the four number payoff ... yes, I'd like more but when you think about it ... you have 18 numbers going for that part of the game, then you can also win if you get three of the four numbers on one line ... so the win can be $2 or $4 ... they do have a lot of payoffs on the small money hits. For instance, I committed myself to $90 on the Match 6 in Dec ... I played $50 on Sunday for the first five drawings starting last Mon Dec 1st ... five $2 tickets with my picks on the first... [ More ]

Reply #1

Tialuvslotto — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 14:19:07 GMT

Match 4 to win $2? PA is really stingy!

You don't say how much you play every draw, but one way to deal with the quick pick numbers would be to buy one ticket, have a look at the numbers and then buy a second ticket where you pick some numbers to fill in the gaps. This way you can add doubles or triples or just fill in missing numbers.

Input Playing the Various 6-49 Games

Crazy Wombat — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 13:21:53 GMT

Been a reader here for a long time ... like everyone else, trying for a life changing jackpot on something.

Just would like to hear from other people living in states that have a 6-49 game. In PA our 6-49 cost $2.00 but you get three lines or chances to win ... coming out to $0.66 a line cost.

I feel it's really the cheapest way to play the lottery in PA, with a shot at a decent jackpot. I'm talking after it builds up to around two million. It's starts at $500,000 and builds slowly with... [ More ]