Which scratch off tickets?

Reply #30

Sarge0202 — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 19:35:43 GMT

Well I submitted the FOIA, after hours on Aug 7. I just got a response that says:

AGENCY ACTION:

Pursuant to section 3(e)(vi) of FOIA, the Illinois Lottery hereby timely invokes the 5-business day extension of time to respond to the Request. This subsection allows the Illinois Lottery to extend its time to respond when the request for records cannot be complied with by the public body within the time limits prescribed by paragraph (c) of this Section without unduly burdening or interf... [ More ]

Reply #29

abjorik — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 21:45:01 GMT

I don't see $10,000 a Week for Life ticket. It costs $20.

Reply #28

Soledad — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 02:09:07 GMT

I don't play Grants very much. But when I asked ScratchSmarter in the first place, and saw the factors I was thinking about how to play based on them, so I just noticed the Instant Take 5 game had a factor of 21 or 22 so I bought 22 tickets. I think I got $19 and about 14 free plays. Only got 1 free pick after on the free plays, lol, but I was happy. Had fun. Anything to point in a direction just use to your advantage. But overboard that's tough with scratchers because it's so easy to do.

I... [ More ]

Reply #27

abjorik — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 01:51:29 GMT

Altough it is great to play games with high factor numbers, DO NOT FORGET that there are still hell lota tickets out there. Do not OVERSPEND like me. I lost tons of money playing $500,000 in Grants. This $5 scratcher has terrible odds for low prizes. So, be prepared to get through loses

Reply #26

ScratchSmarter — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 17:57:35 GMT

Thanks - We're well aware of those PDFs, but they're very inconsistent in their format from week to week - meaning the data takes up different space and there aren't clear 'markers' to tell us how to program our scripts to pull that data our in a consistent method week in and week out. It really frustrated us for a while, so we gave up.

Reply #25

Sarge0202 — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 20:05:30 GMT

At the bottom of http://www.illinoislottery.com/en-us/Winners_Gallery.html there is also some winning lists that could be scraped, but not sure how to sync with the PDF.

Yep- IL is a bear

Da Bears

Reply #24

ScratchSmarter — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 18:08:46 GMT

Yep- IL is a bear - they publish some prizes remaining data in PDF format, but the layout is so inconsistent that we cannot scrape it.

let me know how you make out with a FOIA request. If you get through I'll do the same and start providing a report.

Reply #23

Sarge0202 — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 17:54:51 GMT

Unfortunately, no Illinois sheets. Looking at the available online data, I see it missing key info.

I might have to do FOIA request with the Illinois Lottery, for myself. I did notice special circumstances related for commercial requests that would be you guys.

Reply #22

ScratchSmarter — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 16:29:41 GMT

No, everything is online - in the cloud and run in databases.

We're a team of IT specialist who know how to write code, gather large quantities of data and analyze it for our customers - we've automated our scraping and database functions with redundancy and significant processes for double checking our data and the lotteries.

Reply #21

abjorik — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 16:20:33 GMT

Thank you! Do you do your analysis in Excel

Reply #20

ScratchSmarter — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 13:53:51 GMT

The factor calculation shows that the odds of winning a top prize are higher, around the 7.69 times higher mark than when the game was originally printed.

For example: if the odds of winning a top prize were 1:960,000, they would now be 1:124,837

We consider any of the top three prize tiers a 'top prize'.

Reply #19

abjorik — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 22:46:23 GMT

Does the factor of 7.69 mean that the odds of winning top prize is 7.69 higher than it was originally printed

Reply #18

ScratchSmarter — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 19:56:18 GMT

updated as of 7/21/17

STATE OVERALL_RANK PRICE GAME_NAME GAME_NUMBER FACTOR

NY 1 $20.00 Games Cash X100 1200 63.141

NY 2 $1.00 Games Instant Take 5 831, 1103 42.201

NY 3 $1.00 Games Lucky 7's 822, 1101 19.954

NY 4 $2.00 Games Win For Life 728, 1124 19.529

NY 5 $3.00 Games Cashword Connect 1231 16.493

NY 6 $5.00 Games Queen of Green 1230 12.647

NY 7 $1.00 Games Triple Tripler 1235 11.927

NY 8 $1.00 Games Wild Wins 1250 10.246

NY 9 $2.00 Games... [ More ]

Reply #17

skeptic — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 18:16:10 GMT

Let's see what it looks like for Florida.

Thanks

Reply #16

abjorik — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 18:09:51 GMT

ScratchSmarter

Can you redo New York Scratchers

Reply #15

ScratchSmarter — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 20:54:08 GMT

We consider the top 3 prizes for all games as 'high value targets'.

Based on last weeks analysis, you have a higher probably of hitting a 'top 3 prize' than you did when the game was launched. Actually, a considerably higher chance.

Reply #14

sam9009 — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 17:40:19 GMT

Ok thanks. I thought you were focused on the top prize only.

So your saying right now it's better to buy Cash100x if you interested in the low level prizes

Reply #13

ScratchSmarter — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 17:22:30 GMT

For NY - we don't base our analysis JUST on the website postings. They only publish data for the top 2 prizes available on their website, so we go the extra mile to submit a Freedom of Information Request from the NY Lottery. Approximately once a month, they send us a FULL liability report for ALL prizes remaining for every game. We use those details for our analysis.

For example: last month, cash x 100 had these prizes remaining (Picture directly from the report they sent us

Reply #12

sam9009 — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 15:53:55 GMT

http://nylottery.ny.gov/wps/wcm/connect/34947775-8374-4e01-a4de-5c561a8e0c67/TOPPRS_7_17_2017.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

Reply #11

sam9009 — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 15:33:27 GMT

Thanks for the great info.

The smart factor of the first 3 are real high compared to the smart factor of the first 3 of the other states you did.

Why is Cash x100 so high if there's only one top prize remaining and only two $50,000 prizes left.

Reply #10

ScratchSmarter — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 12:31:56 GMT

Hey Soledad -

Here it is for NY - we actually get a lot of details for NY via the Freedom of Information Requests and we run the exact same analysis:

This was the analysis as of 7/7/17

Why are there multiple game numbers for the same game name?

NY does what we call a REPRINT - in other words, instead of creating brand new games, they just reprint a game under a new game number. Unfortunatlely, they merge the data for all of the games of the same name. If I were playing in NY, I

Reply #9

Soledad — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:39:09 GMT

Um, ScratchSmarter, is there any way you could do that for NY's games. I'd be more than interested in your analysis. Thanks if you can.

And yes I know that about the stores that close. If there by chance is a grand prize located in one of those stores and they do destroy it then the lottery will reprint that grand prize ticket I believe and just have it delivered to another store at another time. I believe this is the case for those grand prize tickets. The thing is though only the factory th... [ More ]

Reply #8

ScratchSmarter — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:09:46 GMT

Great info! Its always good to post info that the lottery commissions share directly with people on the LotteryPost boards!

Just remember the most important thing to remember about gambling - you cannot let emotions get in the way. Even though you're mad that tickets get destroyed, that doesn't have any impact on the math. Some games get destroyed, but that isn't the main reason why prizes go unclaimed - the top reasons prizes go unclaimed are more likely that:

1) the lottery pulls games w... [ More ]

Reply #7

saltlifegirl48 — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 11:26:44 GMT

Well I have a slight correction to make on what you've posted. What you haven't accounted for is the number of tickets that have been destroyed. YES DESTROYED. I have been corresponding all last week with a lady from the Florida Lottery office and she confirmed that anytime a store closes or tickets are removed from machines or counter tops to make way for new games, the partial books ARE DESTROYED. She claims the Florida lottery doesn't know if any prizes, Grand Prize or otherwise are in those... [ More ]

Reply #6

Soledad — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 20:27:25 GMT

The ones that have the most 1st prize or 2nd prize tickets. Or the one that catches your eye twinkle twinkle. Or the ones that are staples for the state that they will never give up. In NY it's Set for Life. That's their staple. There's always 2 $50 winners in the book. The prizes are the key. The odds as well as the cost of the ticket. $10 ones are pretty much the way to go in my opinion.

Reply #5

ScratchSmarter — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 20:10:21 GMT

The simple answer to this question is it depends .

If you know the number of tickets remaining for each game, you can see how the odds have changed in your favor.

The ONLY time that 'prizes remaining' for scratch off tickets means anything is when the total number of top prizes remaining = ZERO.

If there is even one top prize remaining, you have to know the number of TICKETS outstanding to answer your question.

ScratchSmarter does this by analyzing every game for every state (where... [ More ]

Reply #4

Tatototman65 — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 21:21:51 GMT

Wheel of Fortune...

Reply #3

Todd — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 19:45:07 GMT

Reply #2

lawnguy — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 19:37:11 GMT

Thanks for replying

Reply #1

Soledad — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 19:34:49 GMT

Both would be good choices. There's 3 out of 4 top prizes left on the Wheel of Fortune which are worth $2,000,000. And there's 26 out of 30 top prizes on the Loteria game worth $30,000. So in my opinion they're both good choices. The $5 Loteria Grande game has 11 out of 16 top prizes ($250,000). A lot of the $5 games have a lot of top prizes left. If i had $70 to scratch and not worry about it though I'd play the $10 games no doubt. Higher prizes, more money back. Good luck

Which scratch off tickets?

lawnguy — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 19:14:18 GMT

If you were given a total of $70 to spend on Fl Lotto scratch offs which would you buy?

7 Wheel of Fortune $10 tickets?

OR

30 Loteria $2 scratch off tickets?

and....why