The 1st ever lotto add-on: Are You Insured?

"Are you in good hands?";"Nationwide is on your side"; "Did the little piggy cry wee-wee-wee all the way home?"; and other insurance slogans. Though for the purposes of this article, insurance is not a contract one signs entitling them to money if things go wrong with their car, provided they pay their premiums. Rather, it's what the Rhode Island Lottery called the first add-on to a lotto game in America; introduced in Februrary 1981 as a part of their 4/40 Jackpot game. 4/40 Jackpot was itself a pioneer of sorts, a true rarity at the time: a computerized jackpot game. As far as I know, New Jersey's Pick-6 Lotto was the only other game of that kind in 1981 (New York's Lotto, I believe, was only partially computerized at the time).

Anyway, back to this add-on: the "insurance" feature. You see, 4/40 Jackpot tickets were, like pretty much every lottery game back then, $1 apiece. There was a bit of a catch to this game, though; if you bought a one dollar 4/40 ticket and did not match all four numbers, you won nothing! Zilch! Notta! Goose Eggs! All of the prize money raised from a $1 ticket went to the jackpot, leaving nothing for smaller prizes like most games. Presumbably realizing a backlash against a game with so few prize winners, those in control added something called "insurance", an extra dollar bet one made to give them a shot at smaller prizes; and while it didn't insure a win as the name suggested, it still helped out your odds quite a bit. Quite simply, plunking down an extra dollar gave you chance to win two additional prizes: $300 for matching 3 out of 4; and a free ticket (with insurance) for matching two. So, to recap: $1 buys you a chance at the jackpot; but you need another dollar to qualify for the other two prizes. Quite frankly, this all sounds like a bait and switch. It's almost like a car dealer selling you a car, only to tell you you have to buy the engine and tires separately.

Players didn't mind though; the game was successful and like most successful lotto games, they started adding numbers to make it harder to win. 4/40 Jackpot became 4/47 Jackpot in August 1983; in doing so raising the 3 of 4 insurance prize to $447, and adding a feature that turns the jackpot into an annuity if the jackpot reached $200,000. That in turn was replaced by Lot-O-Bucks in 1985; a 5/40 which kept both the insurance and annuity rule. The latter rule was a big reason why Lot-O-Bucks frequently had jackpots around $1,000,000. As for the insurance feature, it was still required to win non-jackpot prizes: four numbers won $450, three won $20, two still won a free ticket with insurance.

Lot-O-Bucks would run unchanged for another decade; then in 1995 it was replaced with a 5/30 called Rhody Cash, and unlike the games that came before it, you didn't need an extra dollar to win smaller prizes. The era of "insurance" was over; an era that no other state experienced. It could be said though that "insurance" would pave the way for the add-ons like Power Play and Megaplier we see today. You don't have to buy those add-ons in order to win a smaller prize (like you once did in Rhode Island), but it does increase those smaller prizes. You could say that they're spiritual successors to "insurance", successors that don't quite make you feel like a sucker.

Bonus: here are some newspaper ads heralding the 4/40 and 4/47 games upon their release. Look how big a deal they make quick-picks and multi-draws. Retroriffic! Warning: Big Files!

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).