Has anybody ever tried to see how many combos he or she can come out with to win a cash 5 jackpot game at least 50% of the time for sure.
Since cash 5 games in general pay so little (at least here on Tx), this is regardless of how much the jackpot prize pays.
The thing is, How much can you lower the number of combinations predicted and still get the winning number 50% of the time (Always).
I just wonder what is the best that people can do.
I guess that cash 5 games have from 35 to 39 balls, at least maybe most of them, here on Tx it has 37 balls.
Stew's program says that a 37 ball cash 5 game has 435,897 combinations.
A 39 ball game has 575,757 combos.
a 35 ball game has 324,632.
The jackpot prize is the only one that pays, since lower prizes don't even pay for tickets spent playing that game, even if you just buy 1 line per draw, unless you are good at predicting for that game.
This is from the Tx Lottery site:
Cash Five Winning Numbers for 02/07/2009 were:
2 - 4 - 14 - 20 - 29
Number
Correct Prize
Amount Winners
5 of 5 $0 0
4 of 5 $517 78
3 of 5 $9 2,952
2 of 5 $2 28,912
Total Winners: 31,942
Anything less than 4 numbers gets you next to nothing, unless you can win those lower prizes very very often and you play only 1 line per draw, more or less.
02/07/2009 02 04 14 20 29 $0 0
02/06/2009 04 15 16 29 30 $0 0
02/05/2009 02 16 30 34 35 $0 0
02/04/2009 08 13 17 31 36 $27,156 1
02/03/2009 04 15 18 21 30 $0 0
02/02/2009 02 03 18 28 32 $0 0
01/31/2009 05 15 24 25 26 $0 0
01/30/2009 11 20 21 28 29 $0 0
01/29/2009 02 12 14 20 21 $0 0
01/28/2009 11 16 28 30 33 $24,512 1
01/27/2009 02 10 16 22 24 $0 0
01/26/2009 02 08 09 23 28 $24,384 1
01/24/2009 01 06 12 28 29 $0 0
01/23/2009 01 13 14 27 32 $0 0
01/22/2009 05 19 22 32 37 $0 0
01/21/2009 02 07 10 18 30 $23,569 1
01/20/2009 12 20 21 22 23 $23,344 1
01/19/2009 10 18 23 30 32 $0 0
01/17/2009 02 10 18 25 32 $26,924 1
01/16/2009 07 09 21 22 23 $23,355 1
01/15/2009 05 14 17 25 34 $25,085 1
01/14/2009 23 25 28 32 35 $12,885 2
01/13/2009 03 06 19 24 27 $0 0
01/12/2009 06 08 21 25 35 $0 0
01/10/2009 01 02 14 26 28 $27,228 1
01/09/2009 04 05 08 33 36 $0 0
01/08/2009 01 07 27 31 33 $4,128 6
01/07/2009 04 11 18 20 37 $24,889 1
01/06/2009 15 32 33 34 37 $12,971 2
01/05/2009 05 14 26 31 36 $27,806 1
01/03/2009 16 17 21 25 26 $26,783 1
01/02/2009 09 13 19 23 28 $8,535 3
01/01/2009 01 02 03 07 19 $19,686 1
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As Always, I had to fix the numbers, When will the lotteries learn that ALL jackpot games' numbers have and are made up of 2 digits?
A 1 is not 1, but a "01", ALL jackpot numbers have "Decades" (Tens) and "Centuries" (Hundreds).
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Anyhow, the Tx Lottery seems to pay no more than about $27,000 and about no less than $4,000 for the jackpot prize.
That is very low, seeing as the game has almost 1/2 Million combinations.
A pick 4 game has 10,000 combos and pays $5,000.
A daily pick 5 game 10x10x10x10x10 has 100,000 combinations and pays $50,000 (I think).
The payment for cash 5 games is way out of proportion in relation to the total combinations that it has.
That is also true for the payment for the lower prizes.
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And no, I have not tried yet myself to see how much I can reduce the combos.