Millionaire Jumbo Bucks is the oldest $20 game out there, and it has been my experience that it has very few good winners. I usually lose, but if I win it is usually a free ticket, up to $40 or $50. The only advantage it has over Maximum Green is that while Maximum Green has the most winners in the hundreds of dollars, Millionaire Jumbo Bucks has more prizes in the thousands of dollars. A good strategy that has been working out fairly well for me is to buy one of each of the $20 games, sometimes two. Most folks that buy until they win have a favorite game, and hate the others, so they don't buy them. I think because of the price there are better chances of winning that way.
I read a clerk like a book the other day. As much as I hate Super Millions, it has the most top prizes left, so I keep on buying it. The clerk suggested that I buy one ticket from each roll of the two rolls of Super Millions, I decided that he was trying to get me to buy the bad ticket out of the way. Maybe, maybe not, but I strongly believe that. I instead elected to buy two off the same roll, and wouldn't you know it, I won $100. Did that clerk know the big winner was there? You tell me.
Another time when I was playing Jingle Jumbo Bucks, I had been buying the tickets one at a time and scratching them at the counter. I kept on losing, to get a winner of a free ticket every 4 or five tickets or so. I went home thinking that there probably was a $100 winner in that roll, so I was there early the next morning, right when it opened. Even though it was a different clerk, when I asked for the ticket, he tried to sell me ones from the other two rolls. I said no, and that I wanted to buy from the roll I had left off the night before. I won $100 on either the first or second ticket I bought, and ended up making a net profit of $20, but it sure as heck beat losing $90! Did that clerk know? You tell me.
Why did he try and steer me to a different roll? I am firmly convinced that there is something that tips them off that a decent winner is there. The Country Store on Johnson Ferry is the one I have lost the most at. I buy up the end of a $20 roll, and then start into the next. Loser after loser, then suddenly the next number ticket is gone. I decided to hedge my bets on something else. I think either a clerk or a pair of leaches came in and stole my win. I spent over a hundred at it, and then someone sweeps in and takes the probable winner. I try and keep up with where the big winners are in each game, especially the $20 variety. They are not iron clad, but you can go by a simple formula so to speak.
Certain tickets seem to win at certain numbers more often than others. I think there is something in the roll number that gives it away to the clerk quite possibly. I might buy 10 tickets in one day, but they watch people buy hundreds, and if they see someone buy tickets and scratch them off and throm them in the trash five times in a row, then a smart clerk is going to buy that ticket or let his favorite customer know. Maybe they get tips for helping folks pick the winners. I am somewhat of a conspiracy theorist, but you would have to be brain dead to think that te clerks don't have the upper hands on us.
I went into one station one day and the clerk was nice enough to let me know not to buy the ticket that I was going to, because someone had just won big. Maybe they are truly trying to help me, maybe they want that ticket for themselves. That same guy told me that an oriental fellow came in and bought a few tickets, and they were all big winners of $50 to $100 or so. That good of luck? If I worked for the lottery, and knew where the winners went, I would go and purchase all of the $100, $250 and $500 tickets. That way I wouldn't have to fill out any paperwork. As I am sure you know, retailers are required as part of their contract to pay instant winners up to $600 with cash, check or money order as they see fit. Anything over that you have to go down to lottery headquarters to claim, and fill out the tax forms. You couldn't very well do that if you were an employee of GLC, because they, nor their immediate family, nor anyone residing in their residence may claim any winners. No one would ever know with tickets under $600.
Just think about it, if they could buy just one $500 winner every day, they would win $182,500 a year, and because they were under $600, there would be no record of the buyer,and it would all be tax free! I have spent pretty close to $10,000 in the year that I have been playing, yet I have never won over $300. You would have thought that I would have had at least a $500 winner or better by now, but no such luck. There are plenty of folks on here that have won $500 or more 5-6 times this year, so it really makes you wonder. Perhaps they spend thousands of dollars a week, where I spend no more than a few hundred tops. My question is is it luck, or is it sheer volume.