Mega Money "ending" in Florida

I put in the parentheses because the game isn't actually ending in the truest sense. More than anything it's just changing it's name, as if it was a purple-loving musician from Minnesota. Instead of Mega Money, it will now be called Lucky Money. The game for the most part is the same; it's still a pick 4+1 format, the jackpot is still capped at $2,000,000 and any money in excess of that still rolls down to the other amounts, and it's still $1. The only changes are in the matrix; instead of 44 main balls and 22 mega balls, there will now be 47 main balls and 17 "lucky" balls; plus EZmatch will now be available. The result of the matrix change is slightly better overall odds, but roughly the same odds of winning the jackpot. The new top prize odds are 1 in 3,032,205; just a slight increase from Mega Money's odds of 1 in 2,986,522. 

Clearly this change is being made for one reason, and one reason only: people were confusing Mega Money with Mega Millions. No one at the lottery had any reason to believe there was anything wrong with the game; that's why they made such comparatively small changes. Take a look at the new prize structure and compare it to Mega Money.

Match	Avg. Prize	Odds
Match 4+1	Jackpot	1:3,032,205
Match 4+0	$2,170	1:189,513
Match 3+1	$340	1:17,629
Match 3+0	$60	1:1,102
Match 2+1	$22	1:559.6
Match 1+1	$3	1:61.43
Match 2+0	$2	1:34.98
Match 0+1	Free Ticket	1:24.57
Overall Odds: 1 in 11.32

I for one am glad they aren't making radical changes. Mega Money was fine as is; the format is a variant on the Winfall format that was exploited in Massachusetts, only this has little to incentivise future schemers. Despite the lack of exploitability, it's still a format that can benefit the smart player. Mega Money will live on, just with a new name.

Source 

New England Lucky For Life changes. Everybody loves a (near) winner.

It been a little more than a year since Lucky For Life launched, the realization of a decades-long push for a New England-wide lottery game (beginning with talks of pushing Tri-State Megabucks into CT, MA, and RI in the 80's). It seems to be reasonably popular, I saw a few LfL tickets being bought when I was in Providence a while back; and there's already plans for a second New England game (possibly a merger of Tri-State Megabucks, Mass. Megabucks, and CT Lotto).

In the meantime, changes are afoot for the young game, with those changes coming on line September 17th. The game will have three more balls in the white ball field, and twenty-two more lucky balls; giving the game 43 numbers in each field. As a result, the game is about to get harder to win; overall odds being increased modestly to about 1 in 8, but top prize odds going up almost threefold to about 1 in 41 million (up from about 1 in 14 mil).

What are these changes for? Bigger lower tier prizes? Maybe $1,000,000/year for life? Odds like this could support such a prize.

No, that'd be too obvious. All of these extra numbers are being added for big increases to the second prize. That's right, not the lower tier prizes, not the jackpot, the second prize. It will go up from $25,000 cash, to $25,000 cash per year for life. A few other prizes are getting modest increases to compensate for the longer odds (new prize amounts are underlined):

Match	Prize	Odds
Match 5+1	$7,000/week/life	1:41,391,714
Match 5+0	$25,000/year/life	1:985,517
Match 4+1	$3,000 (from $2K)	1:217,851.13
Match 4+0	$150 (from $100)	1:5,186.93
Match 3+1	$100 (up from $50)	1:5,887.87
Match 3+0	$10	1:140.19
Match 2+1	$20 (up from $15)	1:490.66
Match 2+0	$2	1:11.68
Match 1+1	$5	1:112.15
Match 0+1	$4	1:82.46
Overall Odds: 1 in 8.607

Yeah, that second prize is getting a big boost; but very few other prizes are going up that much. The top prize and four of the bottom five prizes aren't going up at all. The prize for matching just the Lucky Ball is staying pat at $4, despite being twice as hard to win; and as I mentioned before winning the grand-a-day-for-life is getting almost three times harder to win. You can see just how much emphasis is being put on this new runner-up prize by comparing the percentages of sales that go towards each prize:

Prize Level	Old	New
Match 5+1	27.81%	10.27%
Match 5+0	1.81%	27.90%
Match 4+1	1.27%	0.69%
Match 4+0	1.27%	1.45%
Match 3+1	1.08%	0.85%
Match 3+0	4.31%	3.57%
Match 2+1	3.55%	2.04%
Match 2+0	9.47%	8.56%
Match 1+1	4.74%	2.23%
Match 0+1	4.7%	2.43%

If you're not good with numbers, let me break that down. Nearly half of the prize pool (60% of sales) is going to the second prize. Second prizes have usually been the most neglected when it comes to dividing the take. Powerball turned that around last year by putting almost a fifth of the prize pool into the $1,000,000 second prize. That may not be as much of the pool as the jackpot gets, but it's way more than the other prizes get. LfL has now decided that even the top prize should take a back seat to the second prize; and about that prize, $25,000 per year is not that much money, especially after Uncle Sam gets his cut. They sacrificed every other prize category so they could do this. Granted, you can get a lump-sum in this version which you couldn't before; but that's doesn't help much because despite increased odds, the other prizes are pretty much staying where they are. Solid A game, about to go down a whole letter grade. I give this new LfL is a B-.