20X Lucky #1808 Climbs To The Top

With the retirement of the orange Cross Tripler, 20X Lucky has taken over top billing while the OLG scoops up those four $100,000 Grand Prizes. The game has three of its seven Grand Prizes left to claim and 21% of the float left to sell. Your chances to snag a Grand Prize are 620,000:1. The game has a positive imbalance of 1.68 between the number of Top Prizes claimed and the total prize money awarded for those top prizes. At present, 21% of the top prize tickets are outstanding and 35% of the prize money for those 255 winners remains to be claimed. The game has a high churn rate of 59.6%. At present, $.097 of every dollar spent on the game goes to the three future winners.

Top Rated Games

1. $5 - 20X Lucky #1808 - solid game from both rated perspectives
2. $4 - Bonus Cash For Life #1168 - game is long in the tooth. 
3. $10 - Classic Ruby #1792 - excellent churn game
4. $5 - Cross Tripler #1810 - the little brother of the previous game of choice moves up
5. $3 - QFG Crossword #3208 - tickets selling fast; made up for early loss of Grand Prize

Games To Avoid

1. $4 Double Cash For Life #1170 - top heavy game with poor churn
2. $2 Black Jack #1804 - extremely poor top prize money left to be claimed
3. $10 Bejeweled #1786 - poor on both rated factors
4. $5 Hit Jackpot #1818 - 2 of 7 Grand Prizes left and 40% of the float
5. $3 Scrabble #1821 - very poor top prize ratio

Best Games to Win the Grand Prize

1. Bonus Cash For Life
2. Double Cash For Life
3. 20X Lucky
4. Bejeweled
5. Fortune

Games With No Grand Prizes Remaining

• $3 Words with Friends
• $3 Scrabble
• $2 Black Jack

Comings and Goings

Orange Cross Tripler was taken down from the list this past week. It was the game of choice although I was perturbed to learn that a reader found 40 of them, bought them all, and experienced poor luck. My condolences.

New on the scene is the $1 - $10,000 Spin game. It is very similar in structure to Cross Express although it does offer 2 more Grand Prizes. It is tough for any $1 game to get to a high position on the ratings although it begins life rated more highly than the $20 Extraordinary game.

Also new is the $5 Money Multiplier. It is also a typical $5 game although it only offers 6 Grand Prizes of $100,000 whereas most similar games offer 7.

Personal Play

Poor poor poor. Why can I not get anything more than the cost of the ticket as a return? My YTD return has now sunk to an odds defying 41%. Geesh.

In Conclusion

Here is this week's interesting lottery story:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/us/unlucky-lottery-winner-loses-his-dollar1m-prize/ar-AA9JG83

The OLG Dart Team would have likely been finding a way to get that poor chap his money had he been a proud resident of Ontario. Those guys in California are tough.

Another reader messaged me about a way that he uses to play US based lotteries without having to venture across the border to play. The web site is: http://www.lottolishus.com/refer/CanadianLottoClub . I am going to poke around the site this week. Any comments/reviews from others would be welcome.

Spring is coming my friends. Hang in there.
Doug

Cash For Life 1165 Meets Its End - Now Worst Game to Play

The party is officially over for Cash for Life 1165. The last Grand Prize was won in Ottawa yesterday. As reported last week, the game had been hollowed out meaning that when that last Grand Prize was won the game would go to the bottom of the list. There are no second prizes, no third prizes, 1 fourth prize of $5000, and 1 sixth prize of $500. The game had an impressive run and I'm glad that the OLG did not retire the game while that last prize was outstanding.

The new top rated game is Scrabble 1777 but a poster today suggested that this game was retired by the OLG today along with CFL 1165. That does not surprise me as only 7% +/- 3% of the float for that game remains and have not seen any of those tickets for a while.

I'll therefore skip to the next game which is $5 20x Lucky #1789. Twenty percent +/- 3% of the float remains for this game. Three of its Grand Prizes of $100,000 remain to be claimed. Your chances to win one are 190,000:1 versus 400,000:1 at the outset of the game.

Games to Play

1. $3 Scrabble 1777 (7% of float left to sell +/- 3%)
2. $5 20X Lucky 1789 (20%, +/- 3%)
3. $3 More Lucky Lines 1776 (42%, +/- 3%)
4. $20 Extraordinary 1742 (91%, +/- 4%)
5. $4 Cash for Life 1161 (47%, +/- 3%)

Note that the Cash for Life game recommended here is not the same one that was recommended previously.

Games to Avoid

1. $4 Cash For Life 1165
2. $3 Tetris 1793
3. $2 Fat Cat 1729
4. $1 Bingo Express
5. $3 Crossword 3205

$1 - $2 Game Update

Red Hot 50s is the top rated game in this group. Next best is Crazy 8s if you are looking for a better Grand Prize ($28,888 versus $50).

$3 Game Update

After spending months in purgatory, this group is coming more to the fore. Two of the top 5 rated games are in this area. Those two are much better than the others.

$4 - $5 Game Update

Apart from the two mentioned on the list of top games, Money Multiplier is also worth a try.

$10 - $20 Game Update

Extraordinary and Prestige are both playable. I fail to understand why the OLG has seven games available for purchase in this price range. They'll be selling these games for a long time.

Comings and Goings

More Lucky Lines 1775 was retired this week. It was a dud so salutations to our OLG friends.

Two new games came on line: $1 Cash Cow and $5 Win Take All.

A poster this week was speculating about the prize distributions for games in general. I measure them as follows: House Percentage - Win the Cost of the Ticket - Win More than Cost of Ticket and less than $100 - Win $100 or more, and less than the Grand Prize - Grand Prize.

Here is how the two new games shape up according to that breakdown:

Cash Cow - 40.0% - 10.4% - 47.6% - .3% - 1.6%.
Win Take All - 33.1% - 10.2% - 45.9% - 6.3% - 4.5%.

Based on this breakdown I expect that if you don't win the Grand Prize and you buy a sufficient number of tickets, you should expect a return of 58% for Cash Cow and 62% for Win Take All.

Personal Play

I can't say that I am unhappy that CFL 1165 is kaput. I purchased 82 of those suckers cashing on 26 of them (32%) returning $198 (60%). From the postings that I have seen of others, I should feel lucky. I don't. The numbers reported by others are very poor.

One poster reported going 0 for 15 on Crossword 3205. Although the game is rated poorly, players should expect to win with one out of every 3.84 tickets and a return of 64% even if they don't win a Grand Prize. The chances of going 0 for 15 are less than 1 in 100 - about the same as winning on four consecutive tickets. That sucks.

Meanderings

Thanks to everyone who measures his or her results and reports it on this blog. It is useful information for others and I enjoy keeping track of those results. The OLG would like us all to be individual players. There is always the chance that we may learn something about ticket distribution based upon this reporting.

I know that the OLG would testify under oath that tickets are distributed randomly but the company that prints the tickets uses algorithms in their production and there may be unintended flaws in those computer programs of which the OLG and the supplier are unaware. I know that the chances are not great but, at the same time, the pursuit is not altogether an exercise in alchemy.


Best to all.


Doug

Scarcity of Tickets for 20X Lucky

During the course of the past week, 3% of the total 20X Lucky tickets have been sold bringing the total sold to 83%. All three $100,000 prizes remain to be claimed. It is getting harder and harder to find tickets but keep your search active. This game is by far the best one to play at the moment.

20X Lucky Remains the Choice

As of Friday the 9th, 20X Lucky remains the best choice of games. Only 19% of tickets remain to be sold with all 3 Grand Prizes remaining outstanding. Ticket sellers may tell you that the game has ended: it has not. All the tickets have been distributed and many sellers are sold out but the game remains active. Keep your eye for these tickets.

A friend was able to find 18 tickets over the course of the past week. The game has over 200,000 $20 prizes. He was able to play those 18 tickets and return $85 of the $90 invested. I have not been as fortunate.