Fruit Explosion #1834 Becomes the Best of a Bad Lot

With the retirement of Diamond 7's - yes, the OLG just pocketed two $77,777 prizes from the estimated 437,000 tickets left to sell - the new top rated game becomes Fruit Explosion. The game is by no means a star but 23% of the top prize money remains to be claimed and only 14% of the top prize tickets remain to be sold. The game offers one Grand Prize of $75,000 but all three of the $25,000 second prizes have been claimed. Two of the three $10,000 third prizes remain thankfully.

An estimated 447,000 tickets remain to be sold (+/- 2%) meaning that if you buy ten tickets then your chances to win are the same as having the lucky seat number at a sold out Blue Jays game. Daunting, but I do kinda like the game itself so bombs away!

Top Rated Games

1. $3 Fruit Explosion #1834 - Only 14% of float remains. 
2. $3 Bingo #3016 - Good ratings on both factors and lots of tickets left. 
3. $3 Super Bingo #3018 - New game, tremendous low prize availability.
4. $3 15X The Money #1840 - 2nd best Top Prize ratio number plus good churn. 
5. $5 Cross Tripler #1810 - New version of the game is out. Get the right one.

Games To Avoid

1. $4 DCFL #1170 - One massive Grand Prize left. Otherwise, stinko. 
2. $2 Fast 200's #1817 - Nothing more than $200, right from the get go. 
3. $2 Black Jack #1804 - Started at same time as Diamond 7's. Why is it still for sale?
4. $10 Bejeweled #1786 - Devoid of Grand Prizes as of two days ago. Tic toc, OLG.
5. $2 CFL #1169 - Worst Top Prize ratio currently for sale with 47% of tickets left and 15% of prize $.

Best Games If All You Want Is the Grand Prize

1. DBL Cash For Life
2. Fast 200's - remember, the Grand Prize is $200
3. 20X The Money
4. Fruit Explosion
5. Extraordinary

Games Devoid of Grand Prizes

• Bejeweled
• Wheel of Fortune
• Cashingo
• Black Jack

Comings and Goings

We are in a turnover phase with two games being deleted and four new games added. See CL66's analysis of the new games in the comments to last week's blog.

The recent top rated game, Diamond 7's, was retired with two Grand Prizes left. Also retired was Words With Friends. That was a welcome deletion as it had no Grand Prizes left.

Added was a variety of new games including a 20 million ticket Crossword game #3209, an old standard Tetris game (2.5 million float), a $5 Crossword Tripler (there is an exisiting version that is a better choice, at present), and a new $10 Classic White game. I welcome a new $10 game as the existing crop of $10 and $20 games has been poor for some time. These games should be offering the best opportunities but they all have negative Top Prize ratios. A comment on the blog indicates that we will be getting another $10 game next week. Woo hoo! Bejeweled is on life support with 0 Grand Prizes and 447,000 tickets left to sell and $20 Extraordinary has been on sale for 14 months and still has over half its float to sell! Get rid of it, I say.

Personal Play

I found one last trove of Diamond 7's at a Petro Canada last week. The six tickets contained three winners of $31. In total, I bought 51 of those tickets, winning on 15 of them for a total return of $147. The biggest prize I won was for $27. About right, TMF?

In Conclusion

It looks like the Thousand Islands, Peterborough, Belleville area is the first "zone" to be "modernized". The announcement of a new operator and the construction of a new gaming facility in Belleville will be coming in the next month. I'm looking forward to parsing through the OLG double speak to see how exactly this thing is going to proceed.

Good Luck to All.

Doug