The Two Keno Games Rule The Roost

Keno #1417 remains the top pick although it has been officially retired from the OLG Outstanding Prize List as of today. Regardless, its sister game is ranked second so don't worry about buying the wrong game.

Although the game only offers 5 winning tickets of prizes greater than $100, the total prize money available to be won for prizes of $100 or greater is 33% of the original amount with only 15% of the tickets left to sell. This yields a ratio of 2.14. The game offers a small prize revenue percentage of 54.8% which is not good. CL66's current top pick is 7-11-21. As much as he would not buy a Keno ticket, I would not buy one for that game. Although the top prize ratio for that game is 1.21 (4th best), the small prize percentage for the game is the third worst for any game at 45.6%. Only one of the original grand prizes (7 in total) of $100,000 remains with an estimated 11% of the float. That is about what one would expect but almost any other game is going to give you more churn. So, Keno has better churn and it offers a better turnover of lower prizes. CL66 likes the game due to the quantity of middling prizes which his evaluation method rewards. Mine does not.

It is perhaps a good time to remind any new readers that none of these games are actually good choices. When one surrenders 30-40% to the house, it's a losing proposition for all but the few. We play these games for fun and try to make the best choice from a list of poor ones.




Complete Game Ratings As Of June 16th

Rank	Cost	Game	#	Score
1	$3.00	Keno	1417	617.1
2	$3.00	Keno	1418	490.9
3	$10.00	Platinum	1888	471.1
4	$3.00	More Lucky Lines	1836	447.2
5	$3.00	Crossword	1866	445.0
6	$4.00	Cash For Life	1171	442.0
7	$30.00	250M Golden	1782	436.3
8	$5.00	Cross Tripler	1872	431.7
9	$5.00	Triple Crown	1882	430.9
10	$5.00	Ruby 7's	1885	430.7
11	$5.00	High Roller	1874	428.2
12	$3.00	PacMan Slots	1867	427.6
13	$3.00	Cash Card	1876	426.0
14	$10.00	Diamond	1781	425.5
15	$2.00	Double Dollar	1837	422.2
16	$5.00	Bingo Doubler	1873	422.3
17	$5.00	Black Pearls	1880	422.3
18	$20.00	Extreme	1780	419.7
19	$5.00	7 11 21	1868	412.1
20	$1.00	Bacon Bits	1860	411.3
21	$3.00	Scrabble	1886	410.3
23	$10.00	Lucky Aces	1856	408.7
24	$2.00	Lucky Dog	1859	396.7
25	$3.00	Bingo	3020	394.1
26	$5.00	Bingo Doubler	1850	357.5
26	$10.00	Mega Money	1878	349.6
27	$2.00	Walking Dead	1877	348.4
28	$1.00	Hit 100	1849	330.2
29	$3.00	QFG Crossword	3213	303.6

Comings and Goings

Money Multiplier was retired with one Grand Prize and 10% of its float left. 

New to the list is Lucky Aces. This is a $10 game available only in Ontario. I rate it low due to its small prize availability. It does offer 9.7% of the total game revenue to prize winners of more than $100 and less than the Grand Prize of $250,000, which is the 4th best of any game. My approach does not reward that kind of game, but if that's what you're looking for, jump in. 

In total there are 101 million tickets available for sale. 

Personal Play

Nineteen Keno tickets returned three winners totaling $15. Blechh!

Post Script

In response to a poster this week, CL66 has again raised this notion of winning tickets never being in circulation after a game is deactivated. I disagree with the logic. Although once a game is deactivated it is possible that some game tickets will never be printed or that an unsold winning ticket could be returned to the OLG by a retailer, none of that changes what an individual's chance is of winning. We cannot know if that happens or someone like Randy buys a ticket and has it slip under his car seat. The odds of winning remain the same regardless of these unknowable factors. It could just as likely be true that the last print run for a game is never authorized and that all the outstanding winning tickets are available for sale. In that case one's odds would improve.

A CBC article http://bit.ly/28LqSPZ reports that the OLG's sales were down $260 m last year. They put this down to more jackpots being won earlier thereby reducing the number of draws with $50 million or more jackpots. That makes sense to me but I'm wondering where the growth is in other business lines? They are coming out hard trying to market to youth and young mothers. I'm going to take a look at how PlayOLG is doing versus the OLG's blue sky forecasts. I'm afraid that the OLG remains under the illusion that if they market their product better, their profits will improve. I don't see their product as being that elastic. The more the demographics shift and the more they squeeze existing players, the worse it's going to be for their bottom line. Further, the more they market their product the more likely they are to end up defending themselves against this kind of law suit http://bit.ly/28MtlfB . I personally do not see the merit of such suits but if one presents oneself as being all things to all people, one cannot be surprised is someone finds that they fell down on one of those commitments. 

It's summer today. Enjoy. 

Doug