Odds are still low, honestly even pulling a $500 winner is a stretch with the overall odds being something like 1 in 1,000 during the final drawing. Significantly better than something like the Powerball, or even the regular chances of hitting $1M on a scratchoff of course.
2,500/570,000 = 0.0043% chance when you crunch the numbers, it makes sense as to why very few of us even hit something. I think one person posted saying he won $500 during one of the weekly drawings. With that being said, I do still see buying many of these being justifiable, especially with how much better the odds are at hitting that life changing ticket through this game compared to all the others. I'll still buy raffle tickets next year, but definitely more along the lines of like 2-5 just to follow the old "you gotta be in to win it" motto. The raffle is a bit overrated, in my opinion. Sure, 1 in 82k odds at hitting $1M is really good compared to most games/lotteries.
I think in reality, playing scarce games in targeted ranges like 2MJ, SM, and $10HG (a bit iffy, although maybe not with 700+ books now) might offer odds better than the raffle. With 200 SM books left , that's 6,000 tickets. IF the final jackpot is still out there, the odds are as low as 1 in 6,000 at hitting $3M and of course a person is going to get back around 50% average back typically with this game which is a hell of alot better than looking at losing raffle tickets. Out of the scarce games, I can definitely see at least one popping up. The old $20 Monopoly had it's final prize claimed, although it did have a $500k prize that went unclaimed at the end. Usually when there's prizes remaining that go unclaimed they seem to be from the earlier part of the print, and that shouldn't be the case for 2MJ since all the earlier jackpots were claimed and the majority of active/remaining books are in the relevant GP range. For this reason, I'll still play these games, although likely at a much slower rate now hoping that the supply will keep dwindling itself down.
If FL Lottery improves their recordkeeping, ticket/roll transition procedures, and stops destroying tickets through their inept reasoning, intelligent people could play the lottery with far greater odds and likely make a living off of it. We've already figured out Joan Grinther's "secret", although her initial big win gave her the capital/buying power to continue the chase for more big wins. Texas lotto seems light years ahead of FL lotto in their record keeping practices, at least.
Something regular buyers can do to also increase odds is to keep getting retailers they have a good relationship with to keep calling the warehouse so that a large quantity keeps going to that store. This beats calling and driving to stores. Books with huge prizes can literally come out of nowhere. So much uncertainty here about if these final GPs are still out there.I have a feeling AK Kwik will sell their first jackpot soon with how many books they keep getting on those scarce games.