Not only are prize structures being altered with more lower tier prizes, games are seemingly pulled faster. That can often favor the lottery with many higher tier prizes remaining unclaimed. This is not a new practice, but more games makes it easier to pad the take on the backs of players who don't realize the stated odds and the real odds can be quite different.
It's important to note the lottery and/or its vendor knows the location of every prize contained in an instant pack, and knows where those packs are at any given time. Can proactively seek out unsold top prize tickets by closing the game early and/or selectively pulling particular packs from retailers - read and heard too many stories of this happening.
On top of that, some lotteries won't pull a game until all the top prizes have been claimed verses sold. The lottery and/or its vendor knows when a pack containing a top prize winner has been sold to some degree, and yet can stretch out a game many weeks or even longer despite all top prizes already being sold, but not yet claimed. Some extended play instant games, in particular, Bingo, is highly susceptible to such occurrences due to players accidentally missing the top prize win and discarding the ticket leaving the false perception there are top prizes remaining for sale when in reality there aren't.
And that's not even getting into how instant ticket winners are seeded. The odds of winning a top prize could truly be zero despite the lottery touting otherwise, if the pack(s) containing remaining top prize(s) haven't yet been printed / distributed.
Rambling on, but would love to see some articles scrutinizing in detail how instant ticket packs are created, top prize allocations / distributions, game pulling procedures, are packs selectively pulled, etc. I'd wager such articles would be an eye opener, and likely force lotteries to be more open about how they sell instant tickets.
As of now, it's buyer beware and assume the real odds are far worse than stated, and not all top prizes are available / won't be sold; games pulled early.
