Preference in state lottery games?

[desertrunner]

Over the last 20+ years, I’ve played the California state lottery at various times.

Over the last four years, I’ve played the Arizona lottery on a few trips.

Today I landed in Florida and bought some state lotto for my daughter and me. Just downloaded the phone app to scan the tickets eventually.

So far, out of the 3 states, I think a California has the easiest lotto system and Arizona’s is the worst as their machines and app are not as user friendly. Will find out if the Florida app is user friendly soon.

Anyone here have a similar experience or observations? And yes, I know the lottery is an idiot tax, but I play just for fun sometimes.

[sonatine]

thats so cool that you have a hobby.

i like fishing.

[garrett]

Fantasy 5 is the most realistic to win in Florida with a big amount of money won

Obviously due to the amount of balls not being too many, and numbers only go up to 9 i believe

Combinatorial Maths but yea if you're going to waste $1 in Florida lotto this is your best bet, with 6 figure+ wins sometimes 250k+

https://www.flalottery.com/exptkt/f5oddscalc.pdf

[desertrunner]

G- Thanks for the tip.

[Texter]

I only play the big drawings when they hit about a billion, then I buy one ticket.

[BetCheckBet]

I have my opinions but will wait for mickey crimm to chime in as I believe he is the only professional lottery player here

[desertrunner]

Here is the Florida auto machine, pretty’ much the same as the CA and AZ versions.

Add- I post these topics because I Ike to hear what Druff thinks.

[cyberbabble]

I only play the big drawings when they hit about a billion, then I buy one ticket.

When it gets to a billion, I buy five tickets. You don't stand a chance. You can't compete with a high roller like me.

[mickeycrimm]

I have my opinions but will wait for mickey crimm to chime in as I believe he is the only professional lottery player here

There have been progressive lottery games that go positive but you still need hittable odds. Like, the odds of Powerball are 292 million. Buying 1000 tickets a day, you would average hitting the Powerball once every 800 years.

Megabucks is the Nevada lottery. Odds are 50,000,000. It's a 16% drop so the average cost to hit Megabucks is 24,000,000. It goes positive when it goes above that number. The problem is, at 1000 spins per day it would take an average of 137 years to hit it. Machine pros don't mess with these kinds of progressives because even if they go positive they don't have hittable odds.

But there have been some exploitations of state lotteries. A lot of lotteries publish the odds and paybacks so you can calculate the average cost.

Here are some success stories of exploiting lotteries:

https://www.masslive.com/entertainme...paramount.html

https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/t...for-years.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/business...ottery/470349/

[mickeycrimm]

In general, lottery is one of the biggest sucker bets out there. Most lotteries return maybe half the money taken in to the gamblers. In other words, the lottery is keeping 50 cents per every dollar bet. It's a way to suck tax money out of the poor.

The number is phony too. The lottery is up to 100 million you say? That's only if you take yearly payments of 5 million for 20 years. If you take the lump sum it will be about 30% of the advertised number, or 30 million, after taxes.

[Mission146]

Did someone ask for a Comprehensive Lottery Report, for every state, dividing ticket sales and hold percentages into ticket types (Instant and Drawing), when possible, and looking at the loss (per resident) for traditional lottery for every individual state?

No? Nobody asked?

That's okay. Here's one anyway:

https://wizardofodds.com/online_gamb...y-still-sucks/

By the way, Maine has the most transparent lottery in that it gives the return-to-player by Instant Ticket Denominations (read: price) and does the same for their Fast Cash games.

Because of that, however, we (meaning, I) was able to identify a shifting consumer trend, which I believe can likely be extrapolated to the rest of the country, favoring high-denomination tickets.

What I found in Maine is that ticket sales as a percentage of revenue plummeted as we compare the 2019 Annual Report to the 2021 Annual Report, as we look at tickets below $3. $5 tickets, as a percentage of revenue, also dropped somewhat...but it might have only been statistical noise. However, ticket sales on the higher denomination tickets, as a percentage of revenue, grew, with both the $10 and $25 ticket denominations showing the most significant growth.

Eh...the return-to-player percentage, as one would expect, is significantly greater with these higher denomination tickets. Of course, in terms of expected monetary loss, you'd expect to lose more on $20 and $25 tickets than $5 tickets even cost to begin with. The change to return, for those tickets below $5, is insignificant.

I imagine there's also some cost savings associated with these high denomination tickets when it comes to printing and distribution. I'm an absolute lottery HATER, but even holding north of $0.35 per each, I don't know that the $1 denomination tickets are necessarily hugely profitable. Anyone who lives in states with the self-service machines...because the states are extremely concerned with the prospect of minors gambling and wants to make absolutely sure nobody under the age of 18 does so (by putting lottery machines such that they aren't even in line of sight of staff) will have noticed that some don't even offer $1 tickets, and if they do, it's usually one or two varieties.

Anyway, my study is moderately good. Those interested in the subject of state lotteries can probably do worse than read my page.

[desertrunner]

Saw a Texas machine today, but didn’t buy…

[Mission146]

I’m sure everyone would guess this, but just in case: that’s not a $1.00 ticket with a twenty million top price; the ticket dispensers were simply built with only four digits on the display. That’s a $100 ticket.

[ftpjesus]

Over the last 20+ years, I’ve played the California state lottery at various times.

Over the last four years, I’ve played the Arizona lottery on a few trips.

Today I landed in Florida and bought some state lotto for my daughter and me. Just downloaded the phone app to scan the tickets eventually.

So far, out of the 3 states, I think a California has the easiest lotto system and Arizona’s is the worst as their machines and app are not as user friendly. Will find out if the Florida app is user friendly soon.

Anyone here have a similar experience or observations? And yes, I know the lottery is an idiot tax, but I play just for fun sometimes.

Arizona put out a new app recently because the others was buggy as hell as far as checking tickets. Also you can now buy tickets online through their partner jackpocket. Lastly their one game has horrible odds. Triple Twist jackpot starts way too low when the odds are as bad as a standard pick 6 game roughly 7M-1 (you get 3 sets of numbers for $2) I hit 5 of 6 on one ticket and won a shitty $500 a couple yrs ago. California has one big plus for all the bitching about taxes they dont assess state income tax on lottery winnings. Cant judge on Florida except they also are tax free on lottery winnings other then federal as their is no state income tax.

I usually just play PB and MM when they get up there prize wise figuring well odds vs size of the prize kinda make it worth taking a shot. Its like taking a random bet on a number on the roulette wheel. Its generally -EV but hell somebodys gonna hit it big and cant win if ya dont buy.. Usually by 5 or 6 tickets when I do play some of these whackers buying 100 tickets or more just seem to have money to burn. Worse case Im spending the same as some cheap lunch for a shot at a couple hundred million.

[Sloppy Joe]

In general, lottery is one of the biggest sucker bets out there. Most lotteries return maybe half the money taken in to the gamblers. In other words, the lottery is keeping 50 cents per every dollar bet. It's a way to suck tax money out of the poor.

The number is phony too. The lottery is up to 100 million you say? That's only if you take yearly payments of 5 million for 20 years. If you take the lump sum it will be about 30% of the advertised number, or 30 million, after taxes.

Posts like this make it easy to see why mickeycrimm has only had one losing week grinding slots over the course of two decades riding the circuit.

[Jayjami]

In general, lottery is one of the biggest sucker bets out there. Most lotteries return maybe half the money taken in to the gamblers. In other words, the lottery is keeping 50 cents per every dollar bet. It's a way to suck tax money out of the poor.

The number is phony too. The lottery is up to 100 million you say? That's only if you take yearly payments of 5 million for 20 years. If you take the lump sum it will be about 30% of the advertised number, or 30 million, after taxes.

I remember when we voted for the lottery in California. We were promised the money would be used to fund the best public school system in America. That didn’t exactly happen.

[desertrunner]

frpjesus- Thanks for the tip on the AZ app upgrade, they needed it.

[Sanlmar]

frpjesus- Thanks for the tip on the AZ app upgrade, they needed it.

Give generously

[desertrunner]

Got some AZ tickets today…

[limitles]

I'm a traditionalist. Wishing well. A buck a month in a fountain and you know my "prayers" will be answered.

No proof against it. It's science, it's math, it's probabilities.

I'm a grade 12 graduate so listen up

Here's something to think about.



Think about this before you post the trash you do. You do this every day. Just stop