RJOh,
I had this idea in 1996 with the old Super Lotto 6/47 game. I wrote the Ohio Lottery Commission and ask them their thoughts. I got a nice letter back from the Chief Legal Council of the OLC. She told me where I could look in the ORC (Ohio Revised Code) 3770 dot something, you know how state laws are section this or that. Any way this is what she pointed out.
Block Bet.......
A block bet can occur one of two ways. Either I am standing in line with a large sum of money and play slips and prdventing the next in line from placing a bet or cover all of the numbers and keep someone from being the sole winner. If she got wind of me trying it, she said "we'll be down to see you".
States I have been in touch with and year have said....
Ohio 1996, you know
Ohio 2005, Mega Millions falls under their block bet law.
Florida 1996, Knock yourself out, I could not get it going.
Missouri 2005, Not allowed
Delaware 2005, All bet slips must be filled out by hand is the only rule.
Power Ball 2005, again bet slips done by hand, no one retailer may sell all of the numbers, not a group working for someone to cover all of the numbers.
2,869,685 combos of the 5/53 part of PB. Each one on these is matched to a Power Ball 1/42, so each combo in the 2.8 is in the file 42 times with a different PB number for a total 120,526,770 total combos.
Breaking down the 2.8 combos..
119@24115 meant that there could be 24,115 text files with 119 combos in each one.
221@12985 meant that there could be 12,985 text files with 221 combos in each one.
I work the math to get an even number to divide the combos so none are left out.
I also got a batch of papers from the current CLC at the OLC and it contained info about a group that works out of Arizona. They collect $22.00 from 50 members in each pool, then they, the AZ guys bet $256.00 dollars of the $1,100.00 they collect so each player has 256 chances to win. They (AZ guys) use the rest of the $1,100.00 for "to pay for business expenses, advertising, bonus tickets and promotional items"
OLC will not let these guys operate here.
Now this is a racket, $844.00 in their pockets for each draw. And some here think my idea smells???
One more thing, in the ORC 3770.whatever, each scratch off game is listed as to how many tickets are printed and how many winners and of what are listed. With a little math you can see how a game make money for the OLC. I'm pretty sure each scratch off has its number on the back.
Best Regards,
Mike