A little appetizer...

I've got a blast from the past coming up in my next blog; but until then, here's a little treat. Back in 1992, WFLA-TV in Tampa (that's channel 8 to you and me) aired a magazine-style special; and one of the, uh, "articles" was about the Florida Lotto. More specifically, it was about the people who changed the numbers on the Lotto billboards advertising the jackpots. Funny thing is, while most states converted to digital billboards (Georgia, IIRC, was digital from day one); Florida hung on to their manual signs well in to the 2000s. The Florida Lottery sure was slow to change.

Be sure to jump to 37:44 for the Lotto story; and before I forget, thanks to TVsmurphman for posting this in the first place.

Less bang for your buck on Illinois Lotto (and a lot of other games).

Ever since Northstar took over the Illinois Lottery, they have had little reservations about changing things. They just added a midday drawing to Lucky Day Lotto, the first time I've ever seen a game with a rolling jackpot going twice a day. A less revolutionary, but no less big change is coming to Lotto in July. The price is being "raised" from two plays for $1, to just one play for $1 (or $2 if you add Extra Shot). In addition, a new prize category will be added to the base Lotto game, a $1 prize for matching two numbers, plus all of the other prizes are also going up. The game will be keeping it's 6/52 matrix, and Extra Shot will still have 25 numbers. Illinois' website has all of the further details, so I don't see a need to repeat it here.

This is not the first time Illinois Lotto went from two to one plays for $1. Back in 1997, Lotto went to a 6/48 with an all-cash jackpot (hence the tag line "All the Money, All at Once."); going to one play for $1 and adding a match three prize (a free $1 scratch-off). This was presumably a failure as a little more than a year later the game went back to two plays for a buck, with that format running to this day (though as previously mentioned, not for much longer). New York also did something similar to their Lotto around this time, going to a 6/51 with one play for $1. This was also a dud as they went back to a two for a buck format, the 6/59 currently running now (and knowing the New York Lottery, probably for another decade).

The New York Lottery game development department.

Illinois is getting a better deal with this price increase than most other games have. When Powerball went to $2, for example, nearly all of that extra dollar went to either the jackpot or the new $1 million match 5 prize. The lower tier prizes stayed pretty much the same, and the Powerplay lost a lot of the "power" it had to increase those smaller prizes. With the old Powerplay you could have won up to $35 for matching 3, or up to $500 for matching 4. Respectively, $14 and $200 was the least you could win; now that's the most you can win, even with the extra dollar in price.

Canadians were the first to get this treatment back in 2004, when Lotto 6/49 went from a Loonie to a Toonie (aren't I the currency aficionado?). Aside from the new 2+Bonus prize, all the extra money went to the jackpot; the other lower tier prizes stayed exactly the same on average. To be fair, the 6/49 jackpots were pretty low compared to what they are now; but nothing extra for any of the other winners seems like a bit of a snow job.

...and the last thing Canadians need is another Snow Job.

Since then, Lotto Super 7 went from $2 to $5, becoming Lotto Max in the process. The other prizes did actually get bigger that time, so it was less painful than before. Lotto 6/49 is due to go to $3 later this year; and other than a free ticket for 2 out of 6, and a million dollar raffle for each draw, no other changes seem to be planned. Hopefully, players might actually get some real added value this time, instead of just bigger jackpots (and free tickets).

Oh, and before I forget, the British national Lotto is also due to go up to £2, or about US$3. So there's that, too. Getting rich quick isn't as cheap as it used to be.

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:

Match	Prize	Odds (per $1)
5+WC	Avg. $457,000	1:1,898,688
5	$6,000	1:126,579
4+WC	$500	1:13,562
4	$30	1:904
3+WC	$6	1:502
3	$2	1:33
2+WC	$2	1:58
1+WC	$1	1:19
WC Only	$1	1:19
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:

Match	Prize	Odds (per $1)
5+HB	Avg. $5.7 mil*	1:29,144,841
5	$30,000	1:1,619,158
4+HB	$3,000	1:138,785
4	$100	1:7,710
3+HB	$50	1:3,385
3	$6	1:188
2+HB	$6	1:254
1+HB	$3	1:52
HB Only	$2	1:34
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.

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:

Match	Prize
6/6	Not Applicable
5/6	Regular Prize + $10,000
4/6	Regular 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.

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.



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).

Japanese Lotto Prologue

When I posted the article on lotteries in Japan a couple of days ago. Well, I missed something important in that post, how they draw the numbers. The machines they use are not anything like you've ever seen. First, let me show you what they use to to draw the Loto 6 and Mini Loto.

First the balls are manually fed into a sphere. Then, the machine works by first mixing the balls in the sphere at the top of the machine. Then the balls are poured unto a plate below. The plate then spins profusely like a centrifuge, mixing the balls further until one gets captured. The drawn ball is then placed on a rack, and the plate begins to spin again. The process is repeated until all the numbers are drawn. If you want to see this in action, click here to see it in action via streaming video.

The machine used to draw the Numbers games is even stranger. First, wheels are spun, which seem normal enough. But to actually select the numbers, the machine then shoots arrows (that's right, arrows) at the wheels, and whatever the arrow lands on will be the winning digit. If you want to see this in action, click here to see it in action via streaming video.

日本語ロト (Japanese Lotto)

Thanks to the wonder that is Babel Fish, I am able to decipher to many lotteries around the world. Keep looking back for more world lotteries in a series I will name at a later date.

You would think that a place like Japan would not have lotteries so similar to those here in the U.S. But, they are in fact very similar, they have two digit games, a pick 5, and a pick 6. The digit games are the same run of the mill games you see in many states, except for one key difference, the payouts are pari-mutuel, which is how it's also done in California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. Plus, the two games (called Numbers 3 and Numbers 4), only pay out 45% of sales overall toward prizes, which is lower than most such games here in the states. Other than that, it's all the same, so no real story here.

The Loto 6 game is the big game in Japan, though it isn't nearly as big as other lottos in other countries. This has a lot to do with the fact that it only has 43 numbers to choose from, as opposed to, say, 49. And when the people in one of the world's largest economies all share a game that has such good odds, there are bound to be a lot of winners, and there are. There is almost always a top prize winner, and it's not uncommon to see more than 5 in one draw.

That all may seem like a impediment to rollovers, but they figured out how to make rollovers happen despite all the winners with a rather complicated rule. What they do is limit the amount that can be won to 200 million yen (or approximately US$2,000,000), and then put any jackpot monies in excess of ¥200,000,000 into the jackpot pool for the next draw. That next draw will also have a winnings limit, but it gets upped to ¥400,000,000 (or about $4 million US). That higher limit will continue as long as there is excess jackpot money, with the limit being lowered once there is draw where the jackpot pool is depleted.

And now, some facts about Loto 6:

• Tickets are 200 yen each (or about US$2)
• Pick 6 out of 43
• Drawings every Thursday at 6:45 pm Tokyo time (or 4:45 am Eastern time).
• Winnings to single winner are capped 200 million, or 400 million yen if money was carried over from the previous draw. Any jackpot money in excess of the limit will be carried over to the next week's draw.
• Prize and odds table is below:

Match	Prize in ¥	Approx. Prize in US$	Odds
6	About ¥100,000,000	US$1,000,000	1:6,096,454
5+Bonus	About ¥15,000,000	US$150,000	1:1,016,075.7
5	About ¥500,000	US$5,000	1:28,224.3
4	About ¥9,500	US$95	1:610.3
3	¥1,000	US$10	1:39.2
Overall Odds 1:36.81

Japan also has a pick 5 game called "Mini Loto". It is a far simpler game to explain because it doesn't have any complicated jackpot limit rules. It's a simple pick 5 out of 31, with a sixth bonus ball for second prize. It also appears to put a greater percentage of sales to the jackpot than Loto 6.

• Tickets are 200 yen each (or about US$2)
• Pick 5 out of 31
• Drawings every Tuesday at 6:45 pm Tokyo time (or 4:45 am Eastern time).
• Prize and odds table is below:

Match	Prize in ¥	Approx. Prize in US$	Odds
5	About ¥10,000,000	US$100,000	1:169,911
4+Bonus	About ¥150,000	US$1,500	1:33,982.2
4	About ¥10,000	US$100	1:1,359.3
3	About ¥1,000	US$10	1:52.3
Overall Odds 1:50.2

Well, there you go, that's Japanese Lotto. Leave comments if you have questions.