Fruit Explosion #1834 Remains The Top Choice

Fruit Explosion is days away from being deleted. Posters who were lucky enough to find some have almost unanimously reported poor results. Still, that last Grand Prize remains outstanding and only 280,000 tickets remain to be sold. Perhaps it's time to move on to greener pastures. I'll be keeping my eye out for them but I'm not optimistic. The good news is that we are in a current phase where there are lots of $3 games that are highly rated. These are the bread and butter games for the OLG and I have to admit that the more tickets I get to scratch the more serene I become.

Top Rated Games

1. $3 Fruit Explosion #1834 - 9% of the top prizes remain along with 21% of the TP money.
2. $3 Super Bingo #3018 - excellent small prize ratio. 
3. $5 Cross Tripler #1830 - Solid choice on all measurement factors
4. $3 Bingo #3016 - Decent small prizes and very positive prize $ ratio. 
5. $3 Keno #`1416 - Good choice and a slight preference over its sister version.

Games to Avoid

1. $4 Double Cash For Life #1170 - On life support. Please don't help to save it. 
2. $2 Fast 200's #1817 - Lots of small Grand Prizes. One chance in 800 to nab one. 
3. $1 $10000 Spin #1802 - Poor all around. 
4. $5 20X The Money #1841 - Nothing to recommend.
5. $5 Money Multiplier #1828 - Devoid of Grand Prizes 

Best Games If All You want Is The Grand Prize

1. Fast 200's
2. Cash Blast
3. Fruit Explosion
4. Cash For Life
5. Win Take All

Games Devoid of Grand Prizes

• Money Multiplier
• Double CFL
• QFG Crossword

Comings and Goings

The Interprovincial Lottery folks tossed in the towel on two $10 games this past week - Cadillac Riches and Bejeweled. Each game had about 30% of its respective float left to sell and sales for both games were poor given the length of time that they were on the market. I did not like either of them but CL66 was a proponent of both games. Perhaps our respective lists will begin to look more alike now that these two games are gone.

I have a problem with the new Cash For Life. When I expand the prize returns I calculate a return to players of 66.8%. The game sheet says that it is 65.85%. I have not seen a similar situation since Double Cash For Life and that one continues to perplex me as indicated in last weeks blog post. I'll be calling my friends at OLG tomorrow to discuss.

Personal Play

I fell upon a trove of Fruit Explosions along the 401 last week. I bought 13 and was quite enthusiastic. Of the first seven tickets, I had one winner of $9. I stopped scratching with the intention to complete the task later. The next day I scratched the remaining six and all six of them were winners! The chances of that are one in 1,400! How much return did I get for the six winners? Get ready --- $21!!! That's a $3 profit for the day. In total, the lot had 7 winners (54%) and returned $30 (77%), Lame-o!

In Conclusion

This article from the Gananoque Reporter is of interest http://bit.ly/1GNoyy8 . It's no wonder that the OLG is prevaricating on this one. The City of Kingston (the largest municipality in the Eastern Zone) told the OLG to take a hike. The OLG then went calling to Belleville whose city council gave the OLG a "thumbs up". So, the new operator will take over the 1000 Island Casino ($70 m revenue/yr), the Kawartha Slot Palace ($60 m revenue/yr) and invest in the construction of a new casino in Belleville.

Don't forget that all of this "modernization" is happening so that the OLG can increase their contributions to the provincial treasury thereby buying us all more knee operations. The current profit on the two existing plants is about $100 m/yr. With a new operator the OLG take will be reduced from 75% of revenue to 45% (est). That means that the total revenue will have to increase to about $220 m/yr in order for the OLG to break even. And they'll have to do this without having a casino in downtown Kingston. Who exactly will be responsible for the failure of their misguided "modernization" plan? No one. But we do know who will pay the price - the 571 current employees whose compensation package will surely be sliced by the new operator who will be functioning in a government protected no-compete market place. Stay tuned.

A shout out to my niece Leslie who won $50 this past week on Classic White.

Happy Canada Day to all. It's always a wild time here in Ottawa.


Doug