"When the rates of return started to decline for Ohio's Super Lotto years ago, it was discontinued."
Let me guess, it was our wana-be-math teacher who brought up "rate of return"?
The rate of return on scratch-offs is much lower than the online games, but because of the volume of play, the profits in dollars for that game is higher than all the online games combined in almost every state lottery. The Kentucky Pick-3 game paid out 97% of their ticket sales to prizes in one month and that will effect the Pick-3 game's profit rate of return for the entire fiscal year. They probably saw an increase in volume the following month because some of the winnings were wagered back into the game.
It was the fixed payoffs, jackpot limits and possibly the addition of other games that doomed Super Lotto and not the profit rate of return.
Any wana-a-be math teacher should know rate of return is a ratio or the percentage of total ticket sales that is returned as profit (or loss). A 70% rate of return looks much better than a 35% return, but the profits are much difference when the 35% return is on sales of $2 billion and the 70% return is on sales of $10 million.
The profit rate of return is a fixed 50% on most state raffle games, but only when all of the tickets are sold. The decision to have another raffle game is based on previous volume and if they can get enough volume of play to make it worth it. If PB and MM only sold QPs, the overall rate of return would be almost a fixed percentage, but the rate of return would still vary from state to state because some states will have more or less than their average five number matches.
Maybe our math teacher believes he should explain to the WVA lottery why their rate of return was much lower than the overall PB rate of return for all the states combined when those two guys matched five numbers several times using the PowerPlay option. Or better yet, he could show off his math skills and tell us the percentage chance a group of 21 numbers has of matching one MM number, but probably won't because that would actually add something to the on going discussion.