California United States
Member #112,359
June 17, 2011
661 Posts
Offline
If they are going to sell 1 million tickets and there are 3 available top prizes, do they distribute them evenly at ticket number 250,000 , 500,000 and 750,000 ?
The Ville, FL United States
Member #95,875
August 19, 2010
1,708 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by redhot7 on Jun 18, 2011
If they are going to sell 1 million tickets and there are 3 available top prizes, do they distribute them evenly at ticket number 250,000 , 500,000 and 750,000 ?
Supposedly, they are all random, But we will never know
Pennsylvania United States
Member #109,270
April 9, 2011
1,628 Posts
Offline
I often wonder if they put all 3 out right away. I would think not for a few reasons. Say somehow all 3 top prizes are hit in the first month. Then they have to take the game off and lose money. I wouldnt be shocked if there is 3 that they put one out early and wait to release the other two 6 months down the road. Sucks for us, but would make sense from a lottery perspective.
Oklahoma United States
Member #82,389
November 12, 2009
6,374 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by omiller315 on Jun 27, 2011
I often wonder if they put all 3 out right away. I would think not for a few reasons. Say somehow all 3 top prizes are hit in the first month. Then they have to take the game off and lose money. I wouldnt be shocked if there is 3 that they put one out early and wait to release the other two 6 months down the road. Sucks for us, but would make sense from a lottery perspective.
NY United States
Member #103,213
December 31, 2010
96 Posts
Offline
Lottery should be able to clarify this info under right to information act. Just because if they told us how this worked that doesn't mean they are compromising the integrity of lottery system. I went back and forth on this with NY lottery and they did not provide me convicning answer. They said it is all random and I said that means you could have 3 consecutive top prize winners within a week and then nothing for long time, they said it's possible but due to sheer volume odds of winning often comes true.
Los Angeles, California United States
Member #103,809
January 5, 2011
1,530 Posts
Offline
I don't believe that scratch tickets are a pure random distribution of prizes. In that respect, they are different from all the other draw/lotto games, which really are supposed to be random.
We will probably never know the exact formula or algorithm they use. But they have a certain amount of winners per book/roll. And then they seem to distribute the top prizes in a pseudo-linear fashion. With scratchers, there is the psychology and mind games they incorporate into the ticket manufacturing.
Like when a new game comes out in CA, like $5 Red Hot 7's, or the newest $5 Wild 10's, they seem to hold back top prizes until people have played for a while. Then a bunch of top prizes come out to build the excitement, followed by a slow trickle of top prizes for the remainder of the game. And then they will eventually pull the game after sales die down, even though all of the top prizes have not even been issued out! They would not be stupid enough to leave the insertion of top prizes in a scratch game purely up to chance.
California United States
Member #112,359
June 17, 2011
661 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by Jon D on Jul 12, 2011
I don't believe that scratch tickets are a pure random distribution of prizes. In that respect, they are different from all the other draw/lotto games, which really are supposed to be random.
We will probably never know the exact formula or algorithm they use. But they have a certain amount of winners per book/roll. And then they seem to distribute the top prizes in a pseudo-linear fashion. With scratchers, there is the psychology and mind games they incorporate into the ticket manufacturing.
Like when a new game comes out in CA, like $5 Red Hot 7's, or the newest $5 Wild 10's, they seem to hold back top prizes until people have played for a while. Then a bunch of top prizes come out to build the excitement, followed by a slow trickle of top prizes for the remainder of the game. And then they will eventually pull the game after sales die down, even though all of the top prizes have not even been issued out! They would not be stupid enough to leave the insertion of top prizes in a scratch game purely up to chance.
A retired policeman has recently won Set for Life Jackpot Scratch ticket in Oak Hills. Should I stop playing Set for Life for a while?
Los Angeles, California United States
Member #103,809
January 5, 2011
1,530 Posts
Offline
Set for Life still seems to have some life in it. But as a game it is pretty poor. In order to offer the $2,000,000 prize on that $5 game, have to rob from the amount of the lower prizes they offer. So your return will be much worse than any of the other $5 games as you play...unless or until you hit the top prize. I'll buy a few here and there, but not my main game.
They just recently announced end of game for $5 Wintergreen and $100,000 Riches. Later will be Stacks of Cash and Take 5. Usually a game is out for about a year before they yank it. But Set For Life had a lot of promotional push behind it as well, so it might last well in to the end of the year.
But don't make the mistake of playing a game that is ending. The last $5 game they ended, Millions in Cash, still had 11 of 25 top $1,000,000 prizes unclaimed when they ended it and pulled it from store shelves. So essentially that remainder of top prizes was never even issued, or was sitting in a warehouse somewhere and never went out to stores. Don't play an ending game with the hopes of a top prize, those prizes are probably is not even on the table.
California United States
Member #112,359
June 17, 2011
661 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by Jon D on Jul 13, 2011
Set for Life still seems to have some life in it. But as a game it is pretty poor. In order to offer the $2,000,000 prize on that $5 game, have to rob from the amount of the lower prizes they offer. So your return will be much worse than any of the other $5 games as you play...unless or until you hit the top prize. I'll buy a few here and there, but not my main game.
They just recently announced end of game for $5 Wintergreen and $100,000 Riches. Later will be Stacks of Cash and Take 5. Usually a game is out for about a year before they yank it. But Set For Life had a lot of promotional push behind it as well, so it might last well in to the end of the year.
But don't make the mistake of playing a game that is ending. The last $5 game they ended, Millions in Cash, still had 11 of 25 top $1,000,000 prizes unclaimed when they ended it and pulled it from store shelves. So essentially that remainder of top prizes was never even issued, or was sitting in a warehouse somewhere and never went out to stores. Don't play an ending game with the hopes of a top prize, those prizes are probably is not even on the table.
The last $5 game they ended, Millions in Cash, still had 11 of 25 top $1,000,000 prizes unclaimed when they ended it and pulled it from store shelves. So essentially that remainder of top prizes was never even issued, or was sitting in a warehouse somewhere and never went out to stores. Don't play an ending game with the hopes of a top prize, those prizes are probably is not even on the table.
That's a misleading advertisement. It shouldn't be allowed. There should be a law that mandates that if there are 25 top prizes available, all those 25 must be circulated by the end of the game. Otherwise, they could pull any number they want, advertise it and yank it any time they see fit.
Los Angeles, California United States
Member #103,809
January 5, 2011
1,530 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by redhot7 on Jul 13, 2011
The last $5 game they ended, Millions in Cash, still had 11 of 25 top $1,000,000 prizes unclaimed when they ended it and pulled it from store shelves. So essentially that remainder of top prizes was never even issued, or was sitting in a warehouse somewhere and never went out to stores. Don't play an ending game with the hopes of a top prize, those prizes are probably is not even on the table.
That's a misleading advertisement. It shouldn't be allowed. There should be a law that mandates that if there are 25 top prizes available, all those 25 must be circulated by the end of the game. Otherwise, they could pull any number they want, advertise it and yank it any time they see fit.
Well, it does happen all the time. $5 Wintergreen just ended recently with a bunch of top $100,000 prizes remaining. And the next game to end, $100,000 Riches, will probably be next month sometime. It still shows 27 of 50 top prizes remaining, but do you think another top prize will be issued in the next month before it finishes? Possibly, but most likely not. That game did not sell well and is already disappearing from stores.
You can only hope and trust that they are releasing top prizes in a somewhat linear fashion. Take your Red Hot 7's game for instance:
The game is created with a fixed set of odds and prize ratios and a set number of tickets. The top prize is typically 1 in 1,200,000 odds, so you would expect to see a top prize issued for roughly about every 1,200,000 tickets sold. But there is where some wiggle room comes into play with the pseudo-linear distribution of prizes in the manufacturing and distribution process. You can't always count on that based on the claim dates or when prizes remaining changes. And depending on how sales have been when they pull it, the game may not have paid out as much as the stats said it should have.
What ticks me off is little things that the CA lotto commission does like below, the published odds for the newest game Wild 10's which I'm playing now:
Why do they only publish the odds as a tiny image and not clearly in some HTML format like other lotto sites do is beyond me. You can barely read the numbers on this one! Why do they have to make it so hard? It is lame-o jerk stunts like this that makes me not trust the CA lotto commision folks.
And they used to publish much more complete odds, like the breakdown of the different ways you can win a given prize amount, like the $5 Stacks of Cash game below showed:
California United States
Member #112,359
June 17, 2011
661 Posts
Offline
Quote: Originally posted by Jon D on Jul 13, 2011
Set for Life still seems to have some life in it. But as a game it is pretty poor. In order to offer the $2,000,000 prize on that $5 game, have to rob from the amount of the lower prizes they offer. So your return will be much worse than any of the other $5 games as you play...unless or until you hit the top prize. I'll buy a few here and there, but not my main game.
They just recently announced end of game for $5 Wintergreen and $100,000 Riches. Later will be Stacks of Cash and Take 5. Usually a game is out for about a year before they yank it. But Set For Life had a lot of promotional push behind it as well, so it might last well in to the end of the year.
But don't make the mistake of playing a game that is ending. The last $5 game they ended, Millions in Cash, still had 11 of 25 top $1,000,000 prizes unclaimed when they ended it and pulled it from store shelves. So essentially that remainder of top prizes was never even issued, or was sitting in a warehouse somewhere and never went out to stores. Don't play an ending game with the hopes of a top prize, those prizes are probably is not even on the table.
But don't make the mistake of playing a game that is ending.
I could think of one good reason of buying an ending game. You could enter non winning ticket to End of Game Top Prize draws. You have the chance to win a top prize when you enter a non winning ticket.