Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Changes to Hot Lotto & Wild Card 2

MUSL has been busy this year. They launched a new (but not improved) Powerball, and they've worked on changes on two of their other multi-state games. Wild Card 2 and Hot Lotto will both look different in 2013, I'll start with Wild Card 2 as it will be changing first (and very soon).

The changes will happen on January 13th, and they will be pretty modest. The amount of white numbers will increase to 33 (up from 31). The minimum jackpot will also double to $200,000. But other than a few other prize increases to account for the longer odds, not much else is changing. The states offering the game will still be the small club it is now; you'll still get two plays for $1; drawings will still be Wednesday and Saturday; and the field of Wild Cards will still just consist of the 16 face cards. Here are the new prizes and odds:

MatchPrizeOdds (per $1)
5+WCAvg. $457,0001:1,898,688
5$6,0001:126,579
4+WC$5001:13,562
4$301:904
3+WC$61:502
3$21:33
2+WC$21:58
1+WC$11:19
WC Only$11:19
Overall Odds (per $1): 1:6.67

Later on this year, Hot Lotto will also be changing. That will happen, tenatively, on May 12th; and they'll be a bit more radical than the changes to Wild Card. While the game will still have the same draw days and the same price; the jackpot prize will look very different. Instead of being a 25-year annuity; the advertised jackpot will now be the lump sum amount, after taxes. The amount you see on the billboard (if Hot Lotto had billboards) would be what you'd actually get if you won.

But that jackpot will be a lot harder to win; three times harder, in fact; as the amount of white balls will increase from 39 to 47. However, the number of "Hot" balls will still stay at 19; so the overall odds of winning a prize won't increase much.  The Sizzler will also stay, and will still triple all prizes. The new prize structure is as follows:

MatchPrizeOdds (per $1)
5+HBAvg. $5.7 mil*1:29,144,841
5$30,0001:1,619,158
4+HB$3,0001:138,785
4$1001:7,710
3+HB$501:3,385
3$61:188
2+HB$61:254
1+HB$31:52
HB Only$21:34
Overall Odds (per $1): 1:17.22
*Lump sum, after 25% federal tax.
State taxes not included in calculation.

As you may have noticed, there's still a matter of state taxes; that's going to create an interesting wrinkle. Because states have different tax rates (or none at all), many of the Hot Lotto states might be advertising different jackpots (as they will be advertising the after-tax prize). For example; in Delaware, where lottery winnings are not subject to state tax, they could advertise a jackpot of $2 million; but in Minnesota, which has a 7.25% state tax, they could be advertising a jackpot of about $1.8 million for the same draw. Now, I'm not sure if this is how it really will be; but quite frankly, I don't see a way around it. Could be something to ask MUSL about.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

New Feature coming to Lotto Texas

In my opinion, the best add-on to a game anywhere is the Xtra feature in Florida Lotto. It not only betters your odds of winning something, but it also raises your expected return from 50% to 60%.

Well, something very similar is coming to Lotto Texas, according to a rules change proposal. It will increase non-jackpot prizes as well as a prize for matching 2 numbers (provided you pay the extra dollar). The difference is that instead of a multiplier, each prize category will have a set prize amount. In addition, matching 2 out of 6 will win $2 cash (Florida pays out a free Lotto ticket with Xtra). The actual amounts are as follows:

MatchPrize
6/6Not Applicable
5/6Regular Prize + $10,000
4/6Regular Prize + $100
3/6$13
2/6$2

Now when this is launched, should you buy it? That is, should you pay the extra dollar? This does raise your rate of return, but only to 51.85%. But considering Lotto Texas contributes less than 10% of sales to lower tier prizes, I'd say Extra is a good buy. Much more of your money will go towards the lower tier prizes (the prizes you might actually win); and along with the $2 prize, getting Extra will play to your advantage.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Future Blogs

These are some of the blogs that you can look for in the coming weeks, or months, or whenever I have time to post something.
  • Another review of international lotteries; likely either Brazil or Spain.
  • My countdown of the the 5 worst lottery games of all time!
  • My review of Ontario's new lotto game that replaced Rock-Paper-Scissors.
If you have another idea for a future blog, leave a comment below!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Florida (Lottery) Turns 25: Nostalgia Time!


Courtesy: floridamemory.com
What got me to be so fascinated with the lottery world? Fascinated enough to actually to go through to the trouble to actually start a blog. Like most people's personal fascinations, this goes back to my early childhood. So when I visited the Florida Lottery's website and saw their 25th anniversary "festivities" and the "revival" of their first instant game Millionaire, I couldn't help think of my memories of the Florida Lottery's early years, which closely paralelled my early years.

I grew up outside Tampa; and from the time Florida's Lotto started up, it was a weekly tradition for my dad to go to the local Presto store and buy 5 Lotto tickets. And back in those days, you would literally get 5 singular tickets, you didn't get one ticket with several lines like you do now. It may have been a little inconvenient, but they had a series of some pretty cool art on the head of ticket. I've seen old Minnesota and Pennsylvania tickets with something similar, as they used the same model of lottery computer. But they never looked as cool as the pictures on Florida's tickets. Sadly though, this is probably something we'll never see on lottery tickets again.


Courtesy: VintageGameWorld.com
But there's one thing that would really drive the lottery player of today crazy. For the first couple of years of Florida Lotto, there was no quick pick. You came up with your own six numbers, or you didn't play. The strange thing is, this wasn't a common thing even then. By the time Florida got it's computerized games in 1988, most other states had quick pick. Florida wouldn't get it until 1990. So what did my dad do to pick his numbers? He got out the Rack-O game. This was a game where you had to put numbered cards in a sequence; or something like that, I never played it. But my dad used it to pick numbers by shuffling the cards (the ones numbered 1-49, anyway), and just drawing them one at a time, marking the number on the play slip. Sound fun? Well, it may have been slightly more engaging than a quick pick; but my dad was still pretty glad when quick pick came along.

Courtesy: floridamemory.com
It was hard not to notice the Florida Lottery's presence. There were Lotto billboards everywhere, with manual numbers that were changed without fail every Sunday morning (and Thursday morning after the second draw was addded). That was one of many touches that the first lottery director, Rebecca Paul, put on the new venture. She knew how to give a lottery charm, and did an equally good job of it when she started Georgia's lottery.

But my fondest memory of the Florida Lottery was the drawings! Watching the balls bouncing around was one of the coolest things my pre-pubecent eyes had ever seen. Bouncing here and there, and then one pops up, followed by another, and then another. My dad would sit there, hoping the numbers on the balls matched the ones on his tickets. I didn't have a ticket, nor would I for nearly two decades, but I enjoyed that one minute as much as anybody. So much so, I even made a point to watch the Illinois drawings on WGN. I didn't get to watch these very often though, as they aired just before the late news (on WTVT, channel 13, back when they were a CBS affiliate). And you can't let a small child stay up until 11 when he has kindergarten in the morning.
 
Florida is still one of the better lotteries out there; though after Rebecca Paul left, the lottery became very conservative in their approach compared to other large state's lotteries. Lotto was one of the biggest games in the country for several more years, but the rest of the lottery became very stale. The lottery remained one of the most conservative lotteries up until the mid-2000s, but in recent years Florida's been one of the more aggressive in terms of offering innovative games. However, they are still very wary of multi-state games. They were the last state lottery to not have a multi-state game until they joined Powerball in 2009. And they are still the only lottery to not offer Mega Millions, and they have no plans to join up to this point.


Thursday, December 6, 2012

CA Powerball Update

The CA Lottery seemed pretty eager to tell everyone about the upcoming launch of Powerball. They made their press release pretty soon after the announcement. If you want to see the press release, click here. But the basic jist of the story is that Powerball will become available in CA on April 8th of next year. The release also says that the prize pool will be pari-mutuel, like SuperLotto Plus and Mega Millions (in California).

I looked at the proposed rules, and there was no mention of PowerPlay; so I can safely say that it won't be available in CA. I thought that with the multiplier gone, and with all PowerPlay prizes the same for each draw; I figured that this could be adapted for pari-mutuel payouts. But the 5/5 prize would probably have a hard time keeping near the $2,000,000 prize all the other states get. In fact, I'd bet that if they had a pari-mutuel PowerPlay available, a 5/5 winner might only get an increase of around $50,000 (if there was a winner in the prior draw). That wouldn't go over too well. So while I thought there might be a possibility of PowerPlay being available in CA, I'm not surprised that they decided to pass on it.

This scheme does provide for a very interesting prospect for the 5/5 prize. It will roll over when there is no winner, like Mega Millions does in CA. Mega Millions has had a few 5/5 "mini-jackpots" worth over $1,000,000. And that's with no Megaplier, and no extra money wagered. However, there have been 5/5 winners that have won significantly less than the quarter-million offered in other states. So it's a double-edged sword, and this will also be the case with Powerball.

The 5/5 prize pool will probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of $500K with each draw, more if the main jackpot is big. So if someone is to win $1 million+ by matching 5/5, there will likely need to be a lack of 5/5 winners the previous draw. If there are 5/5 winners in consecutive draws, they will almost certainly win less than $1 million, probably much less. But there is an upside with the rollover rule. If there's a string of draws with no 5/5 winners, a 5/5 win will net a lot more than $1 million (to a single winner, of course). I wouldn't be surprised to see a 5/5 prize pool of $3,000,000 or more somewhere down the line. Will somebody actually win that much? Nobody knows, but I can say this is definately a fun wrinkle to CA's Powerball.

Friday, November 30, 2012

New feature in Illinois Lotto

I don't know how I missed this one for this long, but Illinois added a new feature to Lotto called "Extra Shot". Before I talk about this, take a look at the new logo for the game. Doesn't it kind of look like a logo for a downmarket supermarket that's trying to project a "fresh" image? But in reality, most of their meat and produce is either rotten or poor quality. I don't know, I look too much into graphic design.

Fortunately, this is not a supermarket, but a pretty decent addition to an already decent game. For an extra dollar for two plays, you get an extra number (always quick-picked) between 1 and 25 on each line. Match that number to the winning "extra shot" number, and you win. In essence, this changes the game into a Powerball-type game if you decide to play this extra feature.

So for example, if you match 0, 1, or 2 of the Lotto numbers, you wouldn't win as usual. But you would win if matched the "extra shot". So if you match no Lotto numbers and the "extra shot" you would win $5, you would win $2 if you matched 1 and the ES, and 2 and the ES wins $10. If you match 3, 4, or 5 of the Lotto numbers without the ES, you win the base Lotto prize for that match. But if you match 3, 4, or 5 and the ES, you win the base prize multiplied by 25. So a 3+ES match would win $75, for example.

You could technically also match all 6 numbers and the ES, but that would not win anything beyond the jackpot. And the odds of doing that would be 1 in 508,963,000; so I wouldn't call that a flaw. Nobody's going to do that.

What I would call a flaw is that fact that matching no numbers and the ES pays out more money than matching 1+ES. If I had to make a list of rules for lottery directors, one of those rules would be to "never pay out less for one prize if it's harder to win than a larger prize". The odds of winning $2 on a 1+ES match is one in 62 (on a single line). It's easier to match 0+ES at 1 in 54 odds, but that wins more money than a 0+ES match at $5.

In layman's terms, they pay out less money for matching more numbers. That kind of irks me, and is a flaw in an otherwise decent addition. I think they might have been better off going with some sort of multiplier (like the Megaplier or Florida Lotto with Xtra).

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Where have all the Lottos gone?

Courtesy: U.S. News & World Report
It's something I've wondered lately, especially as we have our second half-billion jackpot in less than a year. What does the common man or woman think they're going to do with all that money? I could definitely understand why a entrepreneur or an armchair philanthropist would look at that sum with glee. But most people don't think that way. So what make a prize like this such a draw, and why is it such a draw that it has made games with mere seven-figure prizes largely obsolete? I didn't know any kind of cash prize could go obsolete.

A few states have gotten rid of their traditional in-state lotto games (Georgia and Maryland come to mind) because, presumably, nobody wants a $5 million jackpot anymore. They've replaced these games either with new games that have some kind of wrinkle to them (like PA's Match 6, or Ohio's old Lot-O-Play), or a traditional pick-6 with a set, non-traditional prize (i.e. Decades of Dollars). And states that have kept their traditional games have seen their sales plummet. Even if Powerball and Mega Millions have much longer odds, they have bigger jackpots and thus bigger sales. There have even been some rare instances in the past few years where the in-state game had a bigger jackpot, and the multi-state game was still the bigger draw.

Is this a bad development for players? Or are lotteries evolving into an ultimately better product? I personally wish that the traditional, in-state games could co-exist in harmony with the big multi-state games. But most players, they've made their decision with their dollars: they want hundreds of thousands, or hundreds of millions, and nothing in between.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Powerball in California: What to expect. (Pre-Announcement Speculations)

12/2/12 Update: The proposed rules have been posted at the CA Lottery website. I will post an update explaining everything soon; but for now, just regard the following blog as a "what could have been?".

11/30/12 Update: This blog was written before the offical announcement from the CA Lottery. But as you can see, it turned out to be correct. But the rest is still speculation for now.

The following blog is mere speculation, except for one thing: Powerball is indeed coming to California sometime in 2013. CA Lottery documents and meeting minutes from the New Hampshire Lottery both say this. However, I can't promise that they will follow through, delays can always pop up. But odds are, this will be 2013's most anticipated game, save for maybe GTA V.

However, California's lottery law will likely create a version of Powerball different from what every other state has. The law essentially requires that all payouts for an online game be parimutuel. This basically means that prize amounts will vary from draw to draw.

This is the rule Mega Millions follows in California. This is a double edged sword for players. On one hand the second prize can rollover and create a mini-jackpot. Players have won $1 million plus for 5/5 without putting down any extra money. The downside, however, is that prizes can end up being quite smaller than what other states get. A Mega drawing in June saw a second prize of about $57K. A lot of money, but significantly less than the $250K they would've gotten somewhere else. And with prize amounts varying as much as this, Megaplier will probably never be offered in California.

So is this what Powerball going to look like in CA? A parimutuel scheme like this would be very interesting because of the large 5/5 prize Powerball has now, and the fact that California will probably offer PowerPlay. It could create some big 5/5 prizes (upwards of $4M with PowerPlay), but could also create some really low prizes (like $300K with PP). That's why I think another situation could take place. Powerball in CA could have a payout scheme similar to Hot Spot, where the prizes are capped at a set amount, and are only lowered if there isn't enough in the prize pool to pay out. So, CA could see semi-fixed prizes in Powerball, and not the varying amounts seen in Mega Millions or SuperLotto Plus. But again, this is just speculation.

And another, unrelated note; what will happen to SuperLotto Plus after this? Move drawings to Mondays and Thursdays? Maybe go back to the old 6/49 format from the 80s? Sales are going to down after this, for sure; so there will probably be changes at some point.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Big (little) jackpot in Ohio.

Ohio's Rolling Cash 5 jackpot is the largest it's ever been, $963,000. This game is one of the best of the 5-out-of-39 games out there (especially since Cash 5 in PA went to 43-ball structure). There have been three jackpot rolls in the past year that have gone over $500,000 (and one a few months ago came within $11K of half a mil). And 4-out-of-5 gets $300, much higher than most states.

I know Cash 5 in PA had reached over a million a few times back when it was 5/39, and OH's Rolling Cash 5 is essentially the same game now as PA's game was in it's original form (right down to the lower-tier prize amounts). And as someone who really misses the old PA Cash 5, it's nice that Ohio is still keeping such a well-structured game in it's line-up. It's also nice to see it get on a roll like this.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Addendum to last blog.

A couple of details about the new Cash 5 game in Indiana. It will indeed be replacing Lucky 5, and it will go on sale on November 4th.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Four new games...

There are four new games that have come to my attention in recent times.

Natural State Jackpot (AR)

Arkansas introduced this game a few weeks ago. It's a daily 5/39 with a rolling jackpot, not all that different from Rolling Cash 5 in Ohio or Fantasy 5 in Michigan and/or Georgia. The lower tier prizes are as follows:
  • Match 2: $1
  • Match 3: $7
  • Match 4: $300 
The jackpot, however, leaves a lot to be desired. It starts at just $25,000; and grows by $5,000 each time there's no winner (regardless of sales). This is understandable considering Arkansas' relatively low population, and the fact their lottery is still pretty new. I just don't know why they went with a 5/39. $25,000 with $5,000 increases is pretty dinky for a game with 1 in 500,000+ odds. I think fewer numbers in the field (35 or so) would have been more appropriate.

All Or Nothing (TX)

Now this game has a lot talk about. For one, they took an idea that I came up with before (look at my HiLo game from a while back). Second, they have taken the nearly unheard of step of having four drawings a day; quite a step for a brand new game concept that has not been proven. Third, not only do they have four drawings a day, they're each drawn with balls. No computerized drawings! And they can all be viewed on their website.

Anyway, the game is played by picking 12 out of 24 numbers. The play slips also give to option to pick all the odd numbers, all the even numbers, the first 12, and the last 12 numbers with one checkmark (this could create problems, but that will be discussed in a moment). Each ticket costs $2; and as for the prizes:
  • Match 12 or 0: $250,000
  • Match 11 or 1: $500
  • Match 10 or 2: $50
  • Match 9 or 3: $10
  • Match 8 or 4: $2
As you can see, matching between 5-7 numbers wins nothing. The overall odds are 1 in 4.5, the odds of winning the top prize is 1 in about 2.7 million. About 56% sales will go towards prizes.

See how this game will perform will be interesting. If it's successful, we'll probably see this concept in a few more states; and Texas will likely expand Pick 3 and Daily 4 to four times a day.  However, Texas might be inviting disaster with this game, particularly with them encouraging players to pick the same number combinations (all odd, first 12, etc.). If one of those combinations come up in some shape of form, they'll be forced to really reduce payouts in order to keep the liability down (for that one draw, at least). So if you're playing, don't fall into that trap and either pick your own numbers or get a quick pick. Otherwise, you might find yourself winning a lot less than you deserve.

Weekly Winnings (AZ)

Replacing the Ca$h 4 game, here comes a concept that was thought to have largely died a long time ago. Weekly Winnings is a sort of throwback to the 4-number, multiple line games that took the nation by storm in the late 90s; like New Jersey's Lotzee and the multi-state Cash4Life. Up until now, the only game like this left in the U.S. was Oregon's Win For Life.

For those who don't remember, this type of game gives you multiple lines of numbers, sometimes as many as 21 on a single ticket. Matching all 4 on a line wins a certain amount dependent on which line was hit (you match all 4 on the top line, you win x; you match all four on either of the next two lines, you win y). If you're confused, don't feel bad, this game confused a lot of players; which may have led this type of game to ditched rather quickly.

In any event, Arizona has brought this game back from the dead, albeit on a smaller scale. You get six lines for each $2 play . Players can pick 4 numbers out of 50 for the top line, but the next 5 are always quick-picked. Match all 4 on the top line and win $52,000 (or $1,000 a week for a year, hence the name). Match 4 on the either of the next 2 lines and win $10,000. Match 4 on any of the bottom 3 lines and win $1,000. Matching 3 or 2 numbers on any of the six lines on a ticket wins $50 and $2, respectively.

Cash 5 (Indiana)

This game hasn't been rolled out yet, nor has a release date been set. But it will be a straight pick 5 out of 39, like the new game in Arkansas and like games in three states that border Indiana. Drawings will be daily, tickets are $1 apiece, and the prize structure is as follows:
  • Match 5: Jackpot ($50,000 minimum)
  • Match 4: $150
  • Match 3: $10
  • Match 2: $1
Nothing revolutionary about this game, but it's a tried-and-true format. No word on whether this will replace another game, such as Lucky 5. If it doesn't supplant anything, this would give the Hoosier Lottery nine different online games (an even 10 if you count the Hoosier Lotto add-on Tag 6).

Other News

Regarding me personally, I've been really busy with school; so updates aren't happening as much as I'd like. I may be able to post more often in the future, but I cannot make any guarantees.

Also, there are some changes apparently coming to Hot Lotto. The New Hampshire Lottery made note of this in their meeting minutes which they post on their website (thank you NH Lottery, by the way). No notes about what changes are being made; but seeing how Hot Lotto is now a decade old, at least double the lifespan of each of it's predecessors, I wouldn't be surprised if these changes are drastic (if it isn't an entirely new game).

Monday, September 10, 2012

"New" Game in Illinois

It's been almost a quarter century since the Illinois Lottery has introduced a new game. Granted, Lotto has been changed a few times since then. Little Lotto's gameplay has not only changed, but so has it's name (beginning as Cash 5, and now called Lucky Day Lotto). But it hasn't been since 1988, when the afforementioned Cash 5/et al game was launched, that Illinois has introduced an entirely new game.

That changed Sunday with the introduction of My3. To play, one must select a three-digit number between 000 and 999. If that sounds familiar, that's because they didn't actually introduce a actual new game, they just added another Pick 3! Granted, it's a sort of "beginner's" version of Pick 3, but why did they have to create a whole new product? They could have just as easily made "beginner's" play slips for Pick 3, and added a new play option to provide multiple prize levels. By the way, I completely forgot about the multiple prize levels in My3.

Apparently they can call this a "new" game because there are multiple prize levels: matching all 3 in exact order wins $200 on a $1 play, matching any 2 in order wins $4. If you match all 3 in a jumbled order, you win $40; unless your number has repeating digits, then you win $100. But that begs the question: what happens if one picks all of one digit (i.e. 000, 777)? Does the player win both the exact and repeating prize, or just the exact order prize?

If you're confused, that just goes to show what a failure of marketing this is. If this was added as a new "ez-win" option to Pick 3, I'd give it a solid B+. But a whole new product? I guess Northstar (the private firm running the lottery) had that idea of adding this to Pick 3, and then they realized "Hey, we haven't introduced a new game since 1988; let's just make this it's own game." There was a lot of speculation on Lottery Post that the new game would be 5-digit game like PA's Quinto. And as bad as that game would have been, it still would have made more sense to add than this: what essentially amounts to another Pick 3. Pointless.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Ohio: Ten-Oh out, Pick 5 in.

The Ohio Lottery is starting up a new game called Pick 5. If you've heard of Quinto in Pennsylvania, you already know how Pick 5 will work; the only difference is that Ohio will offer 50 cent bets along with one dollar bets. It will be drawn twice daily; the first drawing will be held August 12th. The evening drawing will be shown live on TV; pushing the Rolling Cash 5 drawing off-air, and online.

Ohio apparently only has room for 5 in-state games, because Ten-Oh will be ending the day before, on August 11th. Ten-Oh is a keno-style game, and from what I know it was never that popular of a game. But in my opinion, this is a bad deal for players. Ten-Oh isn't a perfect game, mind you. It has top prize odds of more than 8 million to 1, almost as much as Classic Lotto. Plus, it's a computerized game; meaning no ping-pong balls. But, it's a lot easier to win money with Ten-Oh, with overall odds of about 1 in 9. Five-digit, single number games are very hard to win. It will be 92 times harder to win any money with Pick 5; and that's only if you go for a box play with 5 unique digits. So all in all, this is a downward move.

EDIT 7/9/12: Small grammatical errors fixed.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Lotto on the NES?


Courtesy: Destructoid
Yeah, this really happened. In 1991, Control Data Corporation and the Minnesota State Lottery teamed up and came up with a system that allowed players to play the lottery on the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Players could play numbers games as well as instant games right on their NES, and all they had to do was connect the system to a specially provided modem and pay a $10 monthly fee to use the service.

Sounds like another one of those cool ideas which went all the way to prototype stage, and the bottom fell out at the last second. Except, the bottom didn't fall out; this system was actually put into use in real homes, 10,000 of them to be exact. This pilot program was considered successful, but legislators raised concern about the program encouraging children to gamble. After all, the Nintendo was largely considered to be a children's toy. The program was eventually scrapped for this reason, and was one of the last nails in the coffin for Nintendo's long-standing efforts at an online network for the NES.

But even if underage play wasn't an issue, this system was probably destined to fail anyway. The NES was about to be superceded by the Super NES and the Sega Genesis, among other systems, which would have required new hardware. And most importantly, the biggest opponent to home lottery would probably have come into play at some point, the Federal Government. The Feds have often used the 1961 Wire Act to shut down any kind of online wagering scheme, even legitimate ones. Even if underage play and the next generation of home game consoles didn't put an end to this program, Washington probably would have, even though it was restricted to within Minnesota.

As far as I know, this would be the last time a state lottery allowed players to wager from home. That is, until March of this year; when Illinois began online sales of Mega Millions and Lotto.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Play All The Numbers!

Every gambler has tried to gain an edge over the house, and lottery players are no exception. Boards like Lottery Post are full of people trying to predict what is supposed to be unpredictable. Of course, there is no sure fire way to make sure you pick all of the winning numbers on one line. But there is a way you can pick all of the numbers, winning and losing, and spread them generally equally over several lines. You can do this by going to random.org, and clicking on the "Sequence Generator" link (shown below).









You will see a screen like this. Simply put the field of numbers in the area highlighted in blue, and the amount of numbers you pick in the column area (highlighted in green).
















Check it out! You have every number in field laid out, in random order, ready to pick. This is a quick easy way to make sure you've got every number working for you.




















Plus, this will increase your chances of winning a prize; though on the flip side, it also makes it a lot harder to win multiple prizes.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Back From The Dead...

Does that make this blog a zombie? I don't know, but yes, this my first update in about two years. Why has it taken so long? The primary reason has been school and the extra-curricular activities involved therein. But another reason has been because I felt like I couldn't give this blog the attention it deserved. Unfortuately, those feelings led me to give The Lotto Geek no attention at all.

I'm probably going to do things a little bit differently now; first off, game reviews will probably be graded on a more subjective scale (to be determined later) as opposed to just a gut feeling.

Second, I will be going through more traditional outlets to get the word out about the site (in other words, advertising). I just need the money to do that, but you can't make money without spending money (which is the whole point of the lottery, isn't it?).

And third, I probably won't be putting up any more of my game ideas, because I'm pretty sure that lotteries have been stealing my ideas. Just compare my Hi-Lo game with Ireland's All or Nothing game, and tell me they aren't essentially the same game. Only difference, I came up with the idea long before they did.

Beyond that, I'm going to try to keep up with this site on a more consistent basis. One update a week is better than 7 updates a week for a month, and then nothing for 2 years. Hope you keep checking in over the next few days, and I look forward to hearing your comments.