Rework the Lower Tier Prizes for MM & PB.

Reply #40

db101 — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 22:57:58 GMT

Yeah that's what happens in Florida Lotto with Xtra. You only get the free ticket for 2/6 if you buy the Xtra multiplier. With a regular play, 2/6 pays nothing. I'd personally be fine with PB/MM eliminating the prizes under $10 if it made the jackpots bigger. As I said above I play these games infrequently. But I understand biweekly players would disagree since they win those small prizes a lot.

Reply #39

db101 — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 22:43:12 GMT

Ditto. I play PB/MM on the infrequent occasions when they've rolled over to a crazy high amount, but I prefer numbers games to play more regularly. I don't play PB/MM enough to care what the lower prize levels are.

Reply #38

Ranett — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 17:43:13 GMT

Same for me too. I used to buy 5 lines a drawing way back when, but the games have become so unattractive I only buy 1 line a drawing. Some drawings I don't even bother with. Raise it to 2 bucks per line, low tier payouts and then 70 ball matrices discourages me for any more than 1 line per drawing. I liked the Big Game format as well, but those days are long gone.

Reply #37

Hermanus104 — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 04:35:13 GMT

You win more with much better odds playing the 3-ball.

That's why I play only numbers games.

Reply #36

grwurston — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 04:26:02 GMT

I used to play $5 a drawing for the MM. But that was back when it was still the Big Game, and before they had both games in my state, and you still had a better chance of winning before all the matrix changes.

Now, I always get the multipliers, but if I play 10 times a year it's a lot. Why so few?

Here's some perspective. 302,000,000 to 1 odds. There's 330,000,000 people living in the U.S.

Reply #35

Big Joey — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 03:24:10 GMT

I don't like the base $4.00 for a white number, the bonus ball with Powerball. It's the same payout if the bonus ball, or a white number with the bonus ball, that doesn't make sense, two numbers should be different than just the bonus ball.

Reply #34

GiveFive — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 14:53:48 GMT

Although this thread is not about buying The PowerPlay, I thought I'd add something I recently learned about the money involved with it. As we all know, the x2 multiplier is most frequently drawn . (The multiplier is not drawn, it's created by a Random Number Generator - a computer program) For jackpots less than 150 million dollars, the PowerPlay number can be as high as 10x. But that's only happened four times in the 451 drawings held since 10/7/2015. That's because there are only two 10x mult... [ More ]

Reply #33

cottoneyedjoe — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 23:02:50 GMT

If the lottery were to increase lower prize levels appreciably, they'd only do it by taking away from the other prize levels, mainly the jackpot and 5+0. Then it would roll over to the magic $500M even slower.

If they were to make any change to the payouts, I'd wager they would eliminate the 0+1 and 1+1 prizes from the $2 play to feed the jackpot so it would grow faster. (They might keep 0+1 and 1+1 for the $3 play as an incentive as some other lotteries do). Last drawing there were 971,375 p... [ More ]

Reply #32

JADELottery — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 17:40:11 GMT

Finger check that.

Mega Millions Odds

Mega Ball

1

0

White Balls

5

1 in 302,575,350.0000

1 in 12,607,306.2500

4

1 in 931,001.0769

1 in 38,791.7115

3

1 in 14,546.8918

1 in 606.1205

2

1 in 692.7091

1 in 28.8629

1

1 in 89.3818

1 in 3.7242

0

1 in 36.6319

1 in 1.5263

Reply #31

JADELottery — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 13:35:13 GMT

PB won, never broke $400 Million Annuity, took 24 rollovers to do it... I'm underwhelmed.

Our advice, Really, we need a lower tier rework to get back the excitement.

More Money to the People.

Good Luck

Reply #30

JADELottery — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 05:41:13 GMT

About this same time last year the pot was growing.

Now, seems people are leaving the PB.

PB Cash Rollover Increase

Current

Recent

Start

2019-11-06

2018-12-29

End

2020-01-29

2019-03-27

Run

332

325

Rollover

Difference

1

$5,600,000

$8,900,000

-$3,300,000

2

$6,700,000

$8,800,000

-$2,100,000

3

$7,700,000

$8,200,000

-$500,000

Reply #29

JADELottery — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 05:23:02 GMT

MN does have the Gopher 5; which does get up in to the Millions now and then.

Nearly hit the Millions; play that when it does get up there.

The close alternative to MM PB has been the Lotto America.

It's $1.00 a line and we have had some reasonable payouts, but here too, could be a bit better.

Hope those local online state lotteries are doing well for ya.

Reply #28

db101 — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 05:11:45 GMT

Too true. These games have only gotten worse over the years, not better. Every new tweak is to make them harder to win.

I skip the multiplier. Many state lotteries have a flagship in-state jackpot game with decent odds of winning a million or more and tickets that only cost $1. Buy 3 of them and it's a better deal than playing for 5+0 in PB or MM with the multiplier.

Reply #27

JADELottery — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 22:56:17 GMT

Powerball ticket sales this jackpot run.

TICKETS SOLD

DATE

REGULAR

POWER PLAY

2019-11-06

7,544,167

2,264,365

2019-11-09

8,393,503

2,559,431

2019-11-13

7,442,756

2,211,032

2019-11-16

8,831,145

2,637,514

2019-11-20

8,011,732

2,350,671

2019-11-23

9,397,636

2,736,263

2019-11-27

10,209,407

2,782,131

2019-11-30

9,798,993

2,836,372

2019-12... [ More ]

Reply #26

JADELottery — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 22:54:03 GMT

OH, that'll be interesting to watch.

Reply #25

cottoneyedjoe — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 22:26:21 GMT

Just wait til they make it a 79/26 game and increase the price to $4. Then you'll be pining for the old structure.

Reply #24

KY Floyd — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 22:16:00 GMT

At least with Pick 4 you get $5,000.00 on a $1.00 play.

When was the last time somebody bought one pick 4 ticket and won 50k or a million bucks? Or $50 million? If you want to buy a lottery ticket where the payout for a particular prize is a bit closer to the odds against winning that prize there are plenty of games to choose from. We see a fair number of posts from people who say they'd be happy to win the 2nd place prize, but PB and MM are all about big jackpots.

This latest PB jackpot... [ More ]

Reply #23

JADELottery — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 18:09:56 GMT

This latest PB jackpot run has been very slow.

I think most people are very smart and know when they are not getting paid well for their hard work.

In addition, the division of buying power is being split between the two lotteries.

Given a choice, I think many are choosing MM.

It does, in a small way, pay better for player's hard earned dollars.

We still need a rework, though.

Good Luck.

Reply #22

JADELottery — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 17:39:14 GMT

You'll also notice that 2 + 0 doesn't payout even though it has odds of 1 in 28.0531 for PB and 1 in 27.7084 for MM.

Yet, hitting the only the Powerball or Mega Ball, which have very similar odds, pays.

Powerball Odds

Powerball

1

0

White Balls

5

1 in 292,201,338.0000

1 in 11,688,053.5200

4

1 in 913,129.1813

1 in 36,525.1673

3

1 in 14,494.1140

1 in 579.7646

2

1 in 701.3281

1 in 28.0531... [ More ]

Reply #21

JADELottery — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 17:23:55 GMT

Yep, the payouts do not reflect the odds for many of the lower tier; even most of the time when you have a pari-mutual setup.

We've posted about this in our blog.

Below is an example and our opinion of what a payout is compared to what it should be.

In this case, based on a $2.00 bet, we wouldn't need multipliers.

Everybody gets back what the odds says is adequate.

________________________________________________________________________________

Had to recalculate based on the... [ More ]

Reply #20

GiveFive — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 12:57:18 GMT

I'm with you Jade. I rarely even know what the jackpot is in PowerBall because I don't pay attention to the advertised amount. I always add the PowerPlay option even though it's fixed at 2x for second prize.

It's the third place prize that I'd love to win. It carrys 913,130 to 1 odds. Those odds are approximately 1.5 times my states 5/39 game. Of course I'd like to see third prize pay out more than $50,000 but other than not play PB, what are ya gonna do?? My state's 5/39 game pays about $60... [ More ]

Reply #19

Cmoore50 — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 21:21:06 GMT

I'll still play..I'll just pick my spots for now on. Kind of like horse racing. No reason to bet every race.

Reply #18

JADELottery — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 19:27:24 GMT

Sorry to see you're suckered in like so many.

Multipliers are an added punch in the gut, because they don't improve the odds of winning anything.

We really need a lower tier rework to reflect the odds of winning.

Good Luck.

Reply #17

Cmoore50 — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 18:44:59 GMT

It looks like the mega million takes from the 4 ball hit with multiplier to pay much more on the lower 4 ball hit only and double on the 3 hit plus multiplier compared to the powerball. Plus 1 million more up to 3 million more on the 5 for 5 hit. If you're looking for the biggest jackpot with the lowest odds. The powerball is the game. 4 of 5 with powerplay in powerball pays much more than megamillion. The megamillion pays much better on lower payoffs just below that. There both expensive games.... [ More ]

Reply #16

JADELottery — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 17:57:52 GMT

As of 2020-01-26, with the current matrix multiplier option.

Your best choice for a multiplier is MM.

You can see below, the MM multiplier has a better spread.

About 58% of the time your going to get x3 or x4.

Whereas PB, about 56% of time your going to get x2; yeah, x10 is barely there at 1%, and that's rounded up.

Powerball Distribution

Mega Millions Distribution

Number

A

B

C

D

E

PB

PP

PP%

Number... [ More ]

Reply #15

Cmoore50 — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 17:17:01 GMT

I don't play the Mega Million. But I just checked the site out. You're right about the multiplier for the 5 of 5. But a 4 ball hit plus megaplier pays 20k up to 50k. The powerball pays 50k up to 250k. With a 500k payoff possible when the jackpot is 150 million or less.

Reply #14

rcbbuckeye — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 17:16:57 GMT

I play MM and PB and really would be happy with the second prize. I usually powerplay and megaply because at my age 2 million or more is instant retirement. Plus, the odds for second prize are less than half the odds of my state's lotto game. It is $3 opposed to $1 for Tx Lotto, but the odds difference is significant.

Reply #13

JADELottery — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 17:14:16 GMT

As far as multipliers go, I really don't care.

Unless the multiplier is always x3 or higher, it's a loosing gamble.

For most plays, last time I checked, 5 x $0.00 is still $0.00.

Reply #12

JADELottery — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 17:05:24 GMT

The game has been geared toward Jackpot Junkies Zombies.

The focus needs to shift to people like me who think the Jackpot is just the icing on the cake.

I enjoy the lower layers just as much as the top.

Reply #11

JADELottery — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 16:58:26 GMT

MM does multiply 5 out of 5 and no MB.

So, $1,000,000 becomes

x2 - $2,000,000

x3 - $3,000,000

x4 - $4,000,000

x5 - $5,000,000

It's one of the few points working in MM's favor.

But, we still don't play.

Reply #10

Cmoore50 — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 16:48:35 GMT

If you hit 3 or 4 balls with no powerball. You still get the multiplier if you played the powerplay. The 5 of 5 is maxed at 2 million no matter which multiplier comes up.

Reply #9

Cmoore50 — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 16:41:11 GMT

The 10x multiplier is not an option after the pool gets over 150 million now..I'm not sure when they made that change, but that's how it is now.

Reply #8

JADELottery — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 16:38:25 GMT

Unfortunately, in PB, the x10 multiplier does not apply to the 5 out of 5 and no PB.

If you're thinking the x10 would give you $10,000,000.00, it doesn't.

All you get is $2,000,000 for any multiplier, x3, x4, x5 and x10.

If you're thinking you be happy with $2,000,000, good.

They need players who'd passively accept an under paid win.

I'd rather see you win $10,000,000.

Reply #7

JADELottery — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 16:24:34 GMT

Not only that.

Imagine now playing both MM PB each week.

That's $8.00 a line; $12.00 a line if you're multiplying it.

We had to stop, because we're getting back next to nothing for our hard earned dollars.

Reply #6

Big Joey — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 15:29:48 GMT

My advice is always, always play the extra $1.00 for either the Power Play, or Megaplier. It's not optional, the multiplier is where you make the money, especially if the 10X ball is drawn. When the Powerball was over a Billion dollars, in January 2016, the 10X ball was drawn, so just the bonus ball was $40.00

Reply #5

Cmoore50 — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 05:36:11 GMT

The powerball is a very expensive game. I always add the power play option. That's all good when you hit the powerball once in awhile. But it adds up fast when you don't hit anything. I added up my losing tickets a few weeks ago over a years time. Down $1700 betting on the powerball. Best hit was a 3 of 5 and a 2 of 5 with the powerball on multiple tickets. Starting to switch over to the rolling cash five in Ohio. Much better odds and only a buck. Already hit 4 of 5 this year. So that's my main... [ More ]

Reply #4

JADELottery — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 03:54:01 GMT

These odds are harder than hitting a straight in Pick 4: 1 in 10,000.

At least with Pick 4 you get $5,000.00 on a $1.00 play.

Reply #3

JADELottery — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 03:37:06 GMT

The odds on hitting 4 of 5 and no PB is 1 in 36,525.1673

With odds like that, the payout on $1.00 should be around $3,500.00.

$2.00 should be $7,000.00.

$3.00 would be $10,500.00.

But that's just our opinion.

Yeah, it's awful getting only $300 on a $3.00 play.

That's only $100 for every $1.00 of your hard earned money.

Could have been a lot more.

Good Luck.

Reply #2

ieatdirt — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 03:21:09 GMT

I agree. I got 4 out of 5 regular numbers on Powerball (my best result) and about had a heart attack when I began seeing the matching numbers. But then I realized it only pays $100. Luckily I had spent the extra $1 for the power play and won $300 but it still haunts me what could have been.

Reply #1

konane — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 01:05:09 GMT

I would like to see a rework of both Mega Millions and PowerBall matrices to factor in greater chances for more lower tier prizes. I feel there would be less game fatigue and a greater willingness to buy a ticket when the game rolls over.

Rework the Lower Tier Prizes for MM & PB.

JADELottery — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 16:13:44 GMT

Currently, many of the lower tier prizes for MM PB do not reflect the odds of winning.

Would you play or play more if you knew you were going to get something back that reflects the odds?

I'd like to see more money put back in the hands of the players.

How about you