United States
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June 22, 2005
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The states that have that rule in place do this in order to balance their books to ensure a profit zone.
These rules come in handy with popular numbers such as 666, 777, and 714. The lottery would lose money on those deals because so many people play those numbers so often, so it has no choice, but to regulate the payout accordingly.
mid-Ohio United States
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March 24, 2001
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Quote: Originally posted by cadmill12 on May 15, 2008
What makes a number sold out?
States have a fixed limit on payouts for every lottery game. In their number games, when the amounts wagered on a certain combination would cause the payouts to exceed that limit if it was drawn, they stop accepting wagers on that combination. Even states that are not pari-mutuel will go that way on their other games (pick5 and jackpot) if payouts would exceed a certain limit.
* you don't need to buy every combination, just the winning ones *
Wisconsin United States
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March 27, 2003
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Quote: Originally posted by cadmill12 on May 15, 2008
What makes a number sold out?
Remember, the states run the games in order to make a profit, not in order to have everybody win the games. So they have all kinds of safeguards in their software. Often its a limit on triples, but I think last year, for instance (or maybe it was the year before) when July 11th came around here, all the pick 3 players wanted to play 711. So many did that the combination became locked out. And the draw that year was 711 on July 11th. So the state had to pay their maximum outlay without losing money on the game that day.
Whatever the safeguards in place, the reason they lockout a number is to ensure that the state doesn't pay out more than it takes in on that day should that number be drawn.
Rhode Island United States
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October 28, 2007
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Quote: Originally posted by Badger on May 17, 2008
Remember, the states run the games in order to make a profit, not in order to have everybody win the games. So they have all kinds of safeguards in their software. Often its a limit on triples, but I think last year, for instance (or maybe it was the year before) when July 11th came around here, all the pick 3 players wanted to play 711. So many did that the combination became locked out. And the draw that year was 711 on July 11th. So the state had to pay their maximum outlay without losing money on the game that day.
Whatever the safeguards in place, the reason they lockout a number is to ensure that the state doesn't pay out more than it takes in on that day should that number be drawn.
PA puts a $ maximum payout limit on the combined payouts (straight+box + pairs) for every number
combination...say for example the limit is $9,000,000...now your last statement is somewhat incorrect (that they dont pay out more than they take in)..maybe that would be the case for a parimutuel state but this example for 777 in PA indicates that the lottery lost money that day...
"The payout to Daily Number game players for the April 30 nighttime drawing 777 totaled $8,957,250, more than 10 times the amount players wagered. A total of 36,099 tickets were sold for the winning number combination. A 50-cent wager on the Daily Number pays $250; a $1 wager pays $500."
still they are not concerened that this happens because they know there are so many people wagering on popular numbers every single day (triples i guess nearly reach the top limits on wagers most of the time)and since triples and 123, 711s hit only three times a year on average, during the long run the profit swings back heavily on lottery's favor...the things that help the lottery are the maximum payout limit, the fact that when a triple draws no box payout is possible, triple will only draw three times a year...so i mean the game is set up to make money in long run...the lottery can accept to take a loss 3 to 5 drawings per year...