Would They Pay It? Can They Pay It?

Reply #39

GiveFive — Sat, 25 Jul 2020 11:36:26 GMT

In an earlier post in this thread I posted the following;

With regard to whether or not PowerBall would pay out a second place prize of 10 million dollars for a set of five identical lines with the Powerplay option added, I doubt they'd do it. I have to believe that somewhere tucked away in the official rules there's language to the effect that it becomes Pari-Mutuel if certain conditions are met.

I've given some more thought to my strategy of buying five identical lines with the PowerPl... [ More ]

Reply #38

GiveFive — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 11:29:01 GMT

I know that in PB there is language in the official rules that states they can make second place Pari-Mmutuel if there are many winners of the second place prize. I doubt they've ever had to resort to doing that though.

MegaMillions might have something similar in their rules. I've never seen the official rules for MM. G5

Reply #37

GiveFive — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 11:22:26 GMT

California has MM, but all prizes are Pari-Mutuel. That's why no Megaplier. G5

Reply #36

Concord — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 13:26:18 GMT

One more thing about Mega Millions ... I was thinking a few days ago whether they would still pay a 'full' 2nd prize during lower lottery revenue these days.

For instance in my last earlier post with the example of someone playing the same set of numbers three times for each draw with the extra dollar. OK ... they don't hit the jackpot but their numbers have come out and so does the Megaplier 5x. They have three tickets and have just won $15 million ... are they still going to collect the ful... [ More ]

Reply #35

Concord — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 08:16:07 GMT

In my last post I was thinking in terms of someone playing a 'lot' of money on the MM and PB every draw.

Here's an example ... let's say someone has decided to spend $60 on every MM or PB drawing ... they can't afford to play both games for $120. So buying 20 tickets for every draw at $3 (with the extra dollar) will cost $60 or $540 a month total.

I was just thinking in that situation with a budget of $500 a month for only one game ... the MM game might be the better game to play with the... [ More ]

Reply #34

GiveFive — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 12:51:30 GMT

I dont recall what (if any) reason made me pick PB over MM and I didn't take the time look at them as closely as you did.

Because I shoot for a second place win, my reasoning might have been that the second prize odds for PB are a little less than MM's. After reading your post obviously MM is the better bang for the buck. G5

Reply #33

Concord — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 11:51:31 GMT

I am wondering why you go with PB and not MM ... or do you also play Mega Millions with extra lines?

I think you mentioned somewhere that you also play the 'extra' dollar on your PB numbers which would only get you $2 million for the second prize ... but with MM and the 'extra' dollar you have a shot at $4 or $5 million if you get real lucky that night.

I have read about lucky players hitting the 2nd prize with the 4x or 5x Megaplier ball. Here is the breakdown of the total number of Megap... [ More ]

Reply #32

GiveFive — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 10:25:06 GMT

Here's the breakdown Power Play balls for any given drawing:

The Power Play number is randomly drawn from a pool of multipliers that includes two 5Xs, three 4Xs, 13 3Xs, and 24 2Xs, plus one 10X when the jackpot is $150 million or less. Out of a total of 43 Power Play balls, 24 or 55% of them are 2's...

Don't look for that 10x ball to appear very often. G5

Reply #31

GiveFive — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 10:15:57 GMT

No, like a fool I didn't play PowerBall last Wednesday night. Had I played my usual five identical lines with The PowerPlay added and had #5 as my PowerBall, I'd have won $200!! Woulda coulda shoulda....... G5

Reply #30

MsBee18 — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 16:25:20 GMT

You're right the 10X doesn't happen but every blue moon. I thought they took it out with the lower initial jackpot change. But Wednesday confirmed the 10X is still possible. I was lucky enough to have 5 as the red ball with PowerPlay added so instead of $4 I won 40 bucks. Did you get a x10 win on Wednesday

Reply #29

GiveFive — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 14:02:10 GMT

I didn't see it until this morning but something interesting happened with PowerBall on Wednesday night. The PowerPlay number was 10x.

That's only the fourth time that's ever happened since the current matrix was adopted in October of 2015. There's a reason for that. The reason is because there is just one 10x ball while there are many 2x and 3x balls, some 4x balls and a few 5x balls. And.... should the jackpot grow to be more than $150 million, the lone 10x ball is removed from play. So we... [ More ]

Reply #28

GiveFive — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 14:44:58 GMT

I too have never seen odds for a C4L second place posted as anything other than 7,282,016.

With regard to whether or not PowerBall would pay out a second place prize of 10 million dollars for a set of five identical lines with the Powerplay option added, I doubt they'd do it. I have to believe that somewhere tucked away in the official rules there's language to the effect that it becomes Pari-Mutuel if certain conditions are met.

I do think however, that they would pay out for a third pla... [ More ]

Reply #27

Concord — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 08:52:23 GMT

Thanks for rechecking your calculations again. I didn't think to mention that a '0' should always be there for the 2nd prize only ... Cash Balls or 'bonus numbers' have nothing to do with the 2nd prize.

It's very simple, pick 5 winning numbers out of 60 and you win $ 1 million cash or weekly checks ... unless you also have the Cash Ball ... then it gets better.

I have never seen the 5,461,512 odds posted anywhere at any lottery site ... it's always 7,282,016 !

...... [ More ]

Reply #26

GiveFive — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 15:08:25 GMT

Here's a wild thought about the NY May 17th C4L big winner; What if they dont know they won? What if they misplaced that ticket? And that's the reason why they haven't come forward. There's a second prize ticket sold in Orlando Florida for the January 25th C4L drawing that has yet to be claimed.

We're all assuming the player knows they won and that they have the ticket safely stashed away somewhere waiting for NY's district offices to re-open. While I highly doubt that the player is unaware o... [ More ]

Reply #25

GiveFive — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 14:59:40 GMT

I just tried the Smart Luck odds calculator again...

You're correct, if you don't include the Cashball (use a zero as the number of bonus numbers), then the odds are displayed as 5,461,512 to 1.

When I used 1 as the number of bonus numbers (which to calculate the odds to win a second place prize I should not have done because to win a second place prize doesn't require a player to have the Cashball) then the calculator shows 7,282,016 to 1 odds. That matches the back of NY's play slip.... [ More ]

Reply #24

Concord — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 14:31:29 GMT

On a different but related topic, I have Gail Howard's Smart Luck software installed on my laptop. It's got a lottery odds calculator so I used it for C4L. It eventually confirmed the same odds listed on the back of a C4L play slip. If you make a mistake with it (like I did before I decided to follow the instructions on the Help Panel) I got a result of 5.2 million to 1 odds for second place. So perhaps when you used an online calculator you made the same mistake using it that I made using Gail... [ More ]

Reply #23

Concord — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 14:11:25 GMT

If the player from NY did buy four 'separate' tickets ... that was the right thing to do, never put all four lines on one ticket ... it could cost you more in taxes.

Now the player in NY got real lucky and all his numbers came out for that draw, so all tickets would be taxed with the large prizes won ... but suppose only 4 regular white balls came out. Having four out of five regular balls will pay $500 per ticket and one ticket with the Cash Ball will pay $2500.

So with four separate tick... [ More ]

Reply #22

GiveFive — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 12:18:45 GMT

Been thinking about that May 17th big winner in NY a little more.

He's even more savvy than I initially thought. My guess is he played four games on one play slip which produced one ticket from the lottery terminal with four lines on it. The only number different on each line was the Cashball. (Yes, he could have used four play slips, each with a different Cashball, which would have produced four tickets with one line on them, but I dont think he did that. That's something I wouldn't do anywa... [ More ]

Reply #21

GiveFive — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 11:44:54 GMT

Just to add a little to what you wrote;

$1,000 a day and $3,000 a week equals $10,000 a week and $520,0000 per year. G5

Reply #20

GiveFive — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 11:41:46 GMT

Thanks for your post. I've been looking for the official rules for C4L on The NY Lottery's website but I didn't have any luck finding them there. I should have been looking on New Jersey's website because NJ is the flagship lottery for C4L. The drawings are held in Jersey.

Here's a question: (not that I think it will ever actually happen, but theoretically it's possible) What if there were two top prize winners in the same drawing, but they were in two different states? What happens then? Doe... [ More ]

Reply #19

Concord — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 10:39:41 GMT

Just to add to my last post ... being that the NY winner won by themselves ... they either won $10 million dollars total in cash ... $7 million + $3 million for cash or they have $1,000 a day and $3,000 a week paid annually.

...

Reply #18

Concord — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 08:22:22 GMT

G5 ... you would be wasting your money doing what you posted. There is only 'one top prize winner' per draw ... but there can be more than one winner for the 2nd prize ... up to five before the money starts to be split up.

You would not get any extra money at all ... if I read the game rules right. If you have 4 or 5 winning tickets with the 'same' Cash Ball ... they will still only pay $7 million for the first prize or one '$1000 a day' prize.

A player should 'never' play the same set of... [ More ]

Reply #17

GiveFive — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 16:23:36 GMT

Here's a little food for thought with regard to C4L payouts...

If I played the same line five times with the same Cashball and I matched all six numbers, theoretically the lump sum payout would be 35 million dollars. (7 million per line) But I doubt they could cover that amount as they probably dont have that much money set aside in the prize pool. So it's very likely they'd pay far less than that, but who knows how much they'd be willing to pay!!

Now... what if I didn't take the lump sum... [ More ]

Reply #16

GiveFive — Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:29:23 GMT

You do have a better chance of hitting a million dollars with C4L than you do with PB.

It's 11 million to 1 odds with PB vs 7.2 million to 1 odds with C4L. The guy in NY that recently hit one first place C4L prize and three second place prizes won $10,000 a week for life - or $520,000 a year. Yes, over many years his winnings would add up to be multiple millions. Depending upon the players age at the time of the win makes a huge difference with how they'd want take the prize. It's a lot to t... [ More ]

Reply #15

MsBee18 — Sat, 27 Jun 2020 00:08:43 GMT

Now that I think about it.You have a better chance hitting a million with cash4Life then Powerball. I play cash4Life one or two days a week. I play four lines non-duplicates. I hand select cash balls 01 and 04. I let the computer choose the other two cash balls. Tonight I have cashballs 01, 02, and 04 2x's.

Reply #14

Concord — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 14:51:29 GMT

That's nice information ... I know the 2 and 3 Cash Balls do OK for one even and odd play. I don't have the exact information on the number of hits ... until you posted the information.

I don't like the number 1 for a regular or Cash Ball number but every so often the number will destroy my tickets. At times the 1 Cash Ball will come out 4, 5 or 6 times in a row, so for me it can be a killer.

Not too crazy about the 4 Cash Ball either but I will add it to the 2 and 3 Cash Balls once in awh... [ More ]

Reply #13

GiveFive — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 18:13:06 GMT

Cash 4 Life went to daily drawings on July 1st 2019 so next week there will be one years worth of daily drawing history data.

After 359 daily drawings, it appears as if the #3 Cashball will be the hits leader on July 1st with at least 99 hits. #1 has 93 and #2 has 90 hits and #4 has 77.

There have been a total of 885 drawings since June 6, 2014 when the game began and the # 2 Cashball leads the way with 233 hits and the #1 and #3 Cashballs are tied for second place, each with 220 hits, a... [ More ]

Reply #12

GiveFive — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 16:48:50 GMT

I go with the odds too, that's why I mostly play NY's Take5. I feel that matching five numbers is do-able. I was never interested in playing either MM or PB for their respective jackpot amounts due to the idiotic odds to win a jackpot. I focused on second place and to this day I never even bother to see what their current advertised jackpot amounts are.

Florida Fantasy 5 carries even lower odds than Take5 because it has a 5/36 matrix. So what I'm planning to do is play multiple identical line... [ More ]

Reply #11

Concord — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 15:36:40 GMT

Yes, FL has the C4L game. That player in NY that just hit C4L a few weeks ago with all four Cash Balls in play. I was curious how long they were playing those numbers with all four Cash Balls and if with their age they took the money or are having checks sent every year?

With you being in NY maybe you have seen more information on this nice win. It's still a tough game but the better odds make it more acceptable ... at least to me.

You could experiment ... if you have the funds ... playing... [ More ]

Reply #10

rcbbuckeye — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 15:29:16 GMT

Sometimes I'll play Tx Cash 5 with 2 identical lines. Jackpot is $25K, so payout would be $50K. However, when they started the game they put a cap of $75K. So, should there be 4 winning tickets, they would split that $75K four ways.

When I played AoN a lot I liked to play the same (sometimes alternating) numbers up to 5 times. Top prize of $250K would be $1.25 million. Odds were ok, but ticket price of $2 made it expensive. They also made of cap of $20 million, which is highly unlikely to eve... [ More ]

Reply #9

GiveFive — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 15:04:48 GMT

I seem to recall having in the past seen the discrepancy you wrote about, but I cant remember if I saw it with regard to C4L or not.

There was a time when I was a fan of C4L, but since it went daily I havent bothered with it at all, although it does make more sense to play it as you've described rather than playing five identical lines on my PB ticket. (Especially if that odd's discrepancy is true) No doubt it's a better bang for the lottery playing buck.

I started doing the five identical... [ More ]

Reply #8

Concord — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 14:35:00 GMT

To add to my earlier post ... I feel if you were to hit the Cash4Life, even with four winning tickets or two winning tickets, that you would get all your money ... unless several other players were also playing those same numbers.

However, if just you or one player hit that night ... I'm sure you would be paid, for the simple reason that not many people actually hit the first and second prize and they should have a good reserve of 'jackpot' money sitting somewhere when needed.

I like to be... [ More ]

Reply #7

GiveFive — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 13:28:30 GMT

I agree with everything you've written, although I think there's almost no chance they'd payout 10 million dollars if I matched the first five numbers five times in PowerBall. Especially during the pandemic.

The Setprize Prizepool only has so much money in it. And the amount of money in it is based upon how many tickets are sold for each drawing so it will vary from drawing to drawing. If someone (or more likely multiple players) won a total amount of money that exceeded the amount of money s... [ More ]

Reply #6

Concord — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 12:19:27 GMT

There could be a very good chance 'these days' that they might not pay what you are expecting. What DELotteryPlyr posted should make anyone think about the situation. Also, you have no idea how many others could be playing the same set of numbers ... granted the 'odds' are probably low but one or two more winning tickets may just be the killer for what you thought you had won.

Just a suggestion to put winning a 'second place' lottery prize more in your favor. Play the Cash4Life for an easier... [ More ]

Reply #5

GiveFive — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 12:15:18 GMT

Thanks 'Player..

I too Googled the rules looking to see if I'd get 10 million. What I discovered is that each state has their own different rules. Or at least that's what it looked like to me. I never found/saw a NY Lotteries rules page...

I'm thinking what you found for Maryand is exactly what would happen in New York. The thing to remember is they also have to pay all of the OTHER lower tier prize winners with the money they've set aside to do that. And they have a finite amount of money... [ More ]

Reply #4

GiveFive — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 11:57:38 GMT

You're logic matches mine! I thought the very same thing. How could they possibly refuse to pay out ten million dollars to five different winners of the second place prize with The PowerPlay added?

But! I've never seen it happen where there were five winners of a second place prize. I've seen three, but not five. (And of those three, only one of them bought the PowerPlay, so they only had to pay out 4 million dollars)

Is it possible that the chances of there being five second place prize w... [ More ]

Reply #3

DELotteryPlyr — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 09:54:29 GMT

I found this in the MDLottery Powerball page. I think this covers what you are talking about. They most likely have a certain percentage of 'money' that is allowed for 2nd prize and if the number of winners go over that it goes para-mutuel. Couldn't find the 'group rules'.

*In some cases, fixed Powerball prizes and Power Play prizes may be paid on a pari-mutuel basis and will be lower than these published prize levels. Refer to the Powerball Group Rules for a detailed explanation. These priz... [ More ]

Reply #2

SaraAnnRapp — Sun, 21 Jun 2020 15:31:54 GMT

I don't see why they wouldn't pay it. That method of play is legitimate. I wouldn't be concerned at all.

Good luck on this game. I hope your method hits big someday.

Reply #1

rcbbuckeye — Sun, 21 Jun 2020 11:53:50 GMT

As far as I know there is no prize limit on second prize. If 5 different people in your state won second prize with the power play they would have to pay it. I would think they would have to pay you also even with 5 tickets that are the same.

Would They Pay It? Can They Pay It?

GiveFive — Sun, 21 Jun 2020 11:38:09 GMT

I buy five identical lines on one PB ticket and I add The PowerPlay. My ticket costs a total of $15. I do it because if I matched the first five numbers (that didn't happen last night) theoretically I could win $10,000,000. (2 million for each of my five lines)

The ten million dollar question is; Would they pay it? Can they even pay it? I dont know if The New York Lottery even can or would pay it.

Personally, I think the answer is - It depends . It would depend upon the amount of money in... [ More ]