Scrabble #1861 Retains Its Top Billing

I finally got around to tweaking my evaluation formula to address the weakness that the new $30 game presented. One of the factors in the formula is the number of "small" prizes for any game. I defined a "small" prize as anything less than $100. This definition discriminated against the $30 game as it only has a relative small percentage of prizes valued at less than $100. I changed the definition, henceforth, as being anything up to 10X the cost of the ticket. This definition treats all games equally.  The result is evident as the Golden Treasure game is now the 4th rated game available for purchase.

The top rated game remains Scrabble #1861. It sold 3% of its float last week (87,000 tickets) leaving an estimated 450,000 tickets to sell. With two Grand Prizes left to claim, your chances are one in 250,000 which is the best of any game with the exception of those games with many small Grand Prizes. The strength of the game comes from the fact that only 196 of 1362 Top Prizes remain to be claimed, however, those 196 prizes represent $191,280 of the $543,380 that the 1362 original Top Prizes represented. That is over 2X higher than one would expect.

Top Rated Games

1. $3 Scrabble #1861 - Excellent Top Prize imbalance. 
2. $3 Crossword #3212 - 5th best small prize availability and 2nd best Top Prize imbalance. 
3. $3 Keno #1417 - 3rd best but a big gap between this game and the top two. 
4. $30 250 Golden #1782 - Can you stomach a $30 loser? It's a good choice. 
5. $3 Fruit Explosion #1866 - New game is selling well and moving up. 

Games to Avoid

1. $5 Tripling 7's #1858 - NO grand prizes but the OLG milks it as the Grand Prize is < $100k.
2. $10 Classic White #1858 - NO Grand Prizes - only 1 of the top 17 Prizes left. Stinker. 
3. $1 Red Hot 50's #1827 - "We'll take your dollar, if you insist" - OLG President
4. $1 Lucky Lines #1827 - 1 of 4 Grand Prizes left and 36% of the float. 
5. $1 Hot 100 #1849 - three $1 games available and they're all bad. 

Games Devoid of Grand Prizes

• Tripling 7's
• Classic White

Comings and Goings

Crossword #3210 was retired this past week. It was a jumbo game that stayed in play for a long time, running its float all the way down to 5%, which is very low. Still, it was the 8th rated game at the time of its demise.

No new games to report.

There were three Grand Prizes claimed this past week: QFG Crossword lost its first, Money Multiplier lost its second of 7, and Diamond lost its fifth of 12. There are presently an estimated 108 million tickets left for sale which is normal. The total Top Prize money available is 2.7% less than what should be expected.

Personal Play

Nothing to report.

Post Script

Randy commented this past week on the OLG's effort to publicize its Play Smart program. The following quote was included in their release: "We don’t send winning tickets to specific locations, and there is no secret formula for picking winning numbers."

I don't want to re-open old debates but why can't they say that the distribution of winning tickets is completely random? The way they have stated it leaves open the possibility that although a winning ticket is not sent to a specific location it may be sent to a defined zone, such as Eastern Ontario.

This week's story comes from the venerable Toronto Sun:
http://www.torontosun.com/2016/02/16/new-complex-planned-for-woodbine-racetrack-site

This is another chapter in a long tale. In my opinion, it was the reaction of the Woodbine Entertainment Group (WEG) that got the ball rolling to try and kill horse racing in Ontario. It's nigh impossible to figure out who actually owns WEG and when the Ontario Government came to them to talk about slots money and how it was being spent, WEG told them to take a hike. This resulted in the Ontario Government pulling the rug out from underneath their corpulent posteriors. After much yelping and invoking the interests of the "little" people ,whose interests are actually all that should matter, the Ontario Government made the OLG responsible for the welfare of the racing industry. This led to the departure of some senior staff and the hiring of a new vice-president responsible for the file. It has been a slowly developing marriage as the OLG was counting on all of that Slots money to underwrite their "Modernization" plan.

Toronto City Council rejected a casino for the downtown which was not expected by the OLG and only on a second go round did they approve an expansion at Woodbine. Now we see the plans for what amounts to a destination casino. This is the very concept that Frank Stronach proposed years ago but the old boys ran him out of town for being too progressive. My only caution to WEG is that if they're using OLG forecasting as a base for making business decisions, I'd advise getting a second opinion. One thing is for sure; if Woodbine doubles its customer base after the upgrade, it will come at the expense of the communities around Toronto such as Niagara Falls and Rama (Orillia). Woodbine will cannibalize those places and that's something that the OLG failed to mention while they were arm twisting municipalities into approving their respective location for a casino. Still, if you live in Toronto, what's not to like?

One last shout out to Darth who appears to be a college basketball guru. Think I'll ask him to put in my picks for this year's March Madness pool.

Doug