Kentucky United States
Member #32,651
February 14, 2006
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Quote: Originally posted by THRIFTY on Jan 24, 2014
"The idea of ONLY playing when the jackpot is huge is illogical. So, you'll buy a ticket when it's 125,000,000, but it's not worth a buck for a shot at 12,000,000? Really? The smaller prizes are the same, regardless of how big the jackpot is, and that's where you make your money/mitigate your losses. Your goal is to give yourself 1 chance to win the big money each time, and to make sure you claim your small winners." By Sean P
Of the two games, players will probably get more smaller prize wins in MM, but the majority of those wins will be the bonus number and that pays for the cost of one ticket. One of the playing strategies we see on LP is two combos (whether it's a QP or self pick is irrelevant) played for multiple drawings. IMO, there is no correct way to play jackpot games.
"The idea of ONLY playing when the jackpot is huge is illogical."
It is if the player want a chance in every drawing, but not everyone wants to play every drawing. The only relevance of only playing when the jackpot is huge is that it's more likely the jackpot will be won on that drawing. In some of those drawings because of the number of winners, the odds of any one ticket winning that drawing was higher than the playing odds. For instance on March 30, 2012, 651,915,940 MM tickets were sold with three jackpot prize winners. The odds against those three tickets winning was 217,305,313 to 1 compared to the game odds then of 175 million to 1.
What makes waiting for a likely must win jackpot seem illogical is there are very few drawings when ticket sales exceed the possible combos and even then there is no guarantee. The one thing we do know is that more money is spent on the larger jackpots making it unlikely those players are playing for secondary prizes.