New York- The Million Dollar RafflePrev TopicNext Topic

• Long Odds

  

  New York
  United States
  Member #103,594
  January 4, 2011
  8,670 Posts
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  Dec 1, 2025, 5:31 pm

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  New York Lottery held a raffle-style drawing the concluded on October 26, 2025. Buy-in was $20/ticket and the game was advertised as the best odds to win $1,000,000; as the following indicates, those odds got remarkably better for those that played. Reportedly, only 791,352 of the planned 2,000,000 tickets were sold; this was over a many month marketing campaign.  Apparently NYL took a bath as there were 15, $1,000,000 grand prize winners, 15, $100,000 second prize winners, 15, $25,000 third place prizes, and 5,460, $200 fourth place winners. Total sales of $15,827,040 and total payout of $17,967,000 for a whopping $2,139,960 loss to NYL.
• LottoBux

  

  25

  Ontario
  Canada
  Member #109,236
  April 9, 2011
  61,309 Posts
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  Dec 2, 2025, 8:55 am

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  In response to Long Odds

  Quote: Originally posted by Long Odds on Dec 1, 2025

  New York Lottery held a raffle-style drawing the concluded on October 26, 2025. Buy-in was $20/ticket and the game was advertised as the best odds to win $1,000,000; as the following indicates, those odds got remarkably better for those that played. Reportedly, only 791,352 of the planned 2,000,000 tickets were sold; this was over a many month marketing campaign.  Apparently NYL took a bath as there were 15, $1,000,000 grand prize winners, 15, $100,000 second prize winners, 15, $25,000 third place prizes, and 5,460, $200 fourth place winners. Total sales of $15,827,040 and total payout of $17,967,000 for a whopping $2,139,960 loss to NYL.

  It would seem that New Yorkers don't really play raffle draws.

  Maybe the big prize being just $1 Million was not enticing enough for the $20 cost.

  Can't really blame 'em. For $20,I'd be looking for a bigger payout myself.

  But the odds were 1 in 2 million compared to the big draw games odds.

  Somewhere around only 40% of tickets were sold for this draw.

   Great odds for the ones that did play though

                       
  
• GiveFive

  

  Florida's West Coast
  United States
  Member #92,603
  June 10, 2010
  7,148 Posts
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  Dec 2, 2025, 10:08 am

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  In response to LottoBux

  Quote: Originally posted by LottoBux on Dec 2, 2025

  It would seem that New Yorkers don't really play raffle draws.

  Maybe the big prize being just $1 Million was not enticing enough for the $20 cost.

  Can't really blame 'em. For $20,I'd be looking for a bigger payout myself.

  But the odds were 1 in 2 million compared to the big draw games odds.

  Somewhere around only 40% of tickets were sold for this draw.

   Great odds for the ones that did play though

  New Yorkers do play raffle games... except they do it in Pennsylvania. 

  New York's border state of Pennsylvania has been holding their "Millionaire Raffle" for more than the last 20 consecutive years.

  They sell just 500,00 tickets, ($20 each) tickets sales run from November 4, 2025 to January 3, 2025. Odds are 125,000 to 1 to win one million dollars due to the fact they award four one million dollar prizes. I can't ever recall a Millionaire Raffle drawing where they didn't sell all 500,000 tickets. 

  In addition, each ticket purchased on or before Monday, December 29, 2025, will be automatically entered into one of eight Weekly Drawings, each awarding two prizes of $50,000. (and if you do happen to win $50,000 in a weekly drawing, you're still eligible to win a million dollars on January 3rd)

  The Final Drawing on January 3, 2026, will award over $5 Million in prizes.   

  Gotta hand it to Pennsylvania.  The PA Lottery sure knows how to run a raffle.  New York doesn't have a clue how to do it.   You'd think they could learn a lesson from Pennsylvania, but they never have. 

  I live in Florida now, but when I lived in New York I'd drive over to PA (an hours drive) and buy Millionaire Raffle tickets. Many New York as well as New Jersey residents did the same thing. 

  I used to play some of The NY Lottery's games, but I knew what kind of idiots they were. G5

  Play Smart! That's IF there is such a thing as playing smartly!!