Be carefull with that method. I've been watching a game here in MO that's been out for 7 years. They quit supplying retailers with the ticket about 2 Months ago and put out the 180 notice to collect on DEC 31st. I was told when they stop supplying retailers they pick up the remaining tickets when there sales rep's bring them new tickets. The game is a $10 game called lifetime riches with a top prize of 50k for life or $800,000 lump sum.
Like you I looked at remaining prizes and set out on a mission to win one of the remaining big prizes. But should have pulled out the pen and paper and put the math to it first. The remaining prizes were as follows. 50k for life- 2, $20,000 -8, $10,000 -39, $1,000 - 779, $500 - 1639. With a total remaing prizes of 654,437.
I called the lottery office and asked which retailers still had the ticket since none could be found around here for quite some time. After an hour they called back and said that only 3 stores in the whole state still had the ticket. 1 store had 57 left and the other had 12. I Didn't ask about the other store since it was to far away. I called the 2 stores and told them I was on my way A 2 hour drive. Bought the 57 tickets from the first store and went to the other and they had sold there's out. Got $285 out of my $570. I'm not mad, I took the chance that's why I play But the numbers just didn't add up.
I took the 654,437 remaining prizes as there website states and reduced it by 10% for winners that people throw away (yes it does happen). That left 588,993 winning tickets. Divided that by 60,the number of tickets in a package and got 9,816 packages of nothing but winners. I took the 588,993 and multiplyed it by the odds of 3.30 and came up with 1,943,676 tickets. divided that by 60. 32,394 package of tickets should have remained. When they pull the tickets back I'm sure they know right where to go first.
Anyway this is just my observation. I'll still play.