Prestige Maintains Its Secrets

Prestige is in a holding pattern as its sales are languishing. The result is that it remains the top pick. A meager 3% of its float has been sold since late October. As you would expect, low sales equals few Grand Prizes being revealed. Eleven of the twelve Grand Prizes remain to be claimed and a little more than two thirds of the tickets remain to be sold. This is an Inter-provincial Lottery Corporation game which means that I'm not sure how long they will continue to pursue an unpopular game. Prestige is not alone as $200 Million and Classic White are also slow sellers. Maybe the buying public has a significant resistance to spending $10 on a scratch and win ticket. Next week I'll prepare a chart for the active games indicating how many tickets each game has sold over the past month. But for now, Prestige remains the top pick.

Top Rated Games

1. Prestige (67%)
2. Money Multiplier (36%)
3. Fast 200s (27%)
4. $200 Million (59%)
5. Classic White (11%)

Games to Avoid

1. Cash for Life 1162 (30%)
2. Cashingo (18%)
3. Keno 1410 (18%)
4. Horse Shoes (12%)
5. Crossword 3203 (11%)

If you're buying $3 games, take care! All of the above games are devoid of Grand Prizes and four of them are $3 games.

I'm sad to see Cashingo fall "below the line". It was a popular game and rated highly but its last Grand Prize was revealed this week making it the newest of the lame duck games.

$1 - $2 Game Update

Apart from Fast 200's, which is a game with many small Grand Prizes, Wild 8's is the best choice.

$3 Games

Frogger is the top choice here but be careful - there is only one Grand Prize left to be claimed.

$4 - $5 Games

Money Multiplier is a very good choice and it is flying under the radar. If you don't want to shell out $10 or $20 for a ticket, this is the choice.

$10 - $20 Games

Prestige is rated to be so much better than the other three games that I can't justify steering you elsewhere.

Comings and Goings

I was surprised to see a new game this week after the roll-out of the Christmas games. Fat Cat is a $2 game that has potential. Almost 5% of the revenue is returned to players who win $100 or more. That is second only to Fast 200s in the $1-$2 game category.

Personal Play

Four Prestige tickets began with a bang as the first one was worth $50! The remaining three were all losers. My year to date return on investment is now 74% and I have cashed on 38% of tickets this year.

Thanks to readers who posted messages this past week. I always enjoy hearing what you have to say and I'm sure that is also true for other readers.

Lotto Max

Here is my little essay on Lotto Max. Instant Game players are on one end of the spectrum - Lotto Max players are on the other end.

My office has the habit of creating a lottery pool every time the Lotto Max reaches $50 million. Everyone contributes $5 to the cause. I suspect that the main reason most people play is the fear that the others will win. The organizer does a great job of collecting the money, having people sign the group sheet, and providing everyone with the numbers in advance of the draw.

For the last big draw, there were 36 participants. With three lines per play, we had 168 lines in play. The results --- four free tickets! Based on the published odds, we should have reasonably expected to have won $20 once and picked up 7 free tickets. We had one chance in 80 to get five numbers right. Had we been so lucky we would have won $130 for our $180 investment. One of our free tickets won another free ticket to Friday’s draw so it required one additional week to wipe us out.

The bottom line is that games like Lotto Max are essentially winner take all propositions. The Interprovincial Lottery Corporation takes $.52 out of every $1.00 spent for its share of the pie. Once the free plays and $20 prizes are deducted from the $.48 that the lottery chaps put into play, 87% goes to the jackpot winner. In other words, the winner of Lotto Max wins over 40% of all the money spent on tickets. Compare that to Instant Games where the lottery gods take about one third of the money and the Grand Prize winners generally split, depending upon the number of grand prize winners, less than 10% of the revenue generated by the game.

One other minor complaint that I have about Lotto Max is that when the pot exceeds $50 million, the lottery corporation offers a series of single line winning numbers, each one worth $1 million. It is extremely difficult to verify 168 lines of seven numbers against a series of 20 - $1 million lines of numbers. The result is that people are left checking their tickets at machines to see if they won. I don’t like that – I want to know that my ticket is a winner (or a loser) before I check it.

Lotto Max has a large audience of people taking their fling at a monstrous prize. As for me, I prefer scratching my tickets and getting maximum action for my dollar. I'm prepared to pay the cost of not being able to win a monster prize. It’s a matter of preference. 

Hats off to the Saskatchewan Rough Riders. They were deserving winners.

Doug

Prestige Stands Firm

During a short week Prestige surrendered none of its top prizes. It remains the recommended play. For those looking for a cheaper alternative, the third rated game, Money Multiplier, is a good choice. Its odds of 310,000:1 to win the Grand Prize are the best of any game. Another feature I like about this game is that only 9.6% of projected revenue is returned to players who win the cost of the ticket. That is the second best such number currently available.

I was encouraged by the new Cash For Life 1161 but no sooner had I posted my last blog than a reader posted a comment that one of the Grand Prizes had already been claimed. That event has negatively impacted the game based on the fact that your odds of winning one of the two remaining Grand Prizes are now 4 million to 1.

I have a bone to pick with the OLG on these Cash For Life games. Their policy is to retire games with no grand prizes left to claim if the Grand Prize for the game is $100,000 or higher. The Present Value of $1000/wk for life is $750,000. Double that for the Double Cash for Life. By that measure, Cash for Life 1162 should be retired. Let's see if they do so promptly or not. The temptation to let the game remain in play is large considering that 30% of the ticket float remains to be sold (3 million tickets).

Top Rated Games

1. Prestige (68%)
2. Fast 200s (30%)
3. Money Multiplier (40%)
4. $200 Million (60%)
5. Classic White (11%)

Games to Avoid

1. Cash For Life 1162 (30%)
2. Keno 1410 (18%)
3. Crossword 3203 (14%)
4. Horse Shoes (13%)
5. Bingo (15%)

Note - Percentages are estimated remaining percentage of tickets left to be sold.

$1 - $2 Game Update

After Fast 200s and its small but plentiful Grand Prizes, Wild 8s is the best choice.

$3 Game Update

This is a battleground. These are the highest volume games yet four of them are presently devoid of Grand Prizes. Be careful. Cashingo and Frogger are the best two choices.

$4 - $5 Game Update

Money Multiplier is the best choice, followed by Jack Frost.

$10 - $20 Game Update

If you afford this level of play, stick to Prestige.

Comings and Goings

After all the activity of last week, there is not much to report this week. The OLG mercifully retired 20X Lucky. The game had surrendered all of its Grand Prizes and had an estimated 15% of its float left to sell.

Personal Play

Three Prestige tickets included 2 winners totaling $40. Jay in Scarborough blew his weekly budget on one Prestige ticket and managed to double his money.

There are some interesting comments from readers to last week's entry. One poster is not a fan of Prestige - too many little wins. Fair comment. These things are always a question of preference. Another poster mentioned a hospital lottery. I have never purchased a $100 lottery ticket before but I know lots of people who have won non cash prizes and swear by this type of play. Any feedback from readers on that question would be appreciated.

The Argos face the TiCats in the Eastern Final for the first time since 1986 on Sunday! That's pretty shocking when you realize that there are only four teams in the conference. Of course the Roughriders/Renegades were also competing for periods of time over the course of those 27 years.

Doug

Prestige Continues to Dominate

Prestige's rating increased this past week as 3% of its float was sold and nary a Grand Prize was revealed. To date, only 1 of the 12 Grand Prizes has been revealed and 32% of the tickets have been sold. We should have expected to have seen 4 of the prizes claimed by now which puts us three to the good. This is a significant imbalance that makes the game a top pick. The game also offers a very high 50.0 % of its projected revenue returned to players winning more than the $10 cost of the ticket and less than $100. This is a strong number that yields one winner of more than the cost of the ticket from every 4.80 tickets sold. If you can scrounge up the $10, this is the game to play.

Top Rated Games

1. Prestige (68%)
2. Fast 200s (32%)
3. $200 Million (60%)
4. Money Multiplier (43%)
5. Cash For Life 1161 (100%)

Games to Avoid

1. Cash for Life 1162 (31%)
2. Keno 1410 (19%)
3. 20x Lucky (15%)
4. Horse Shoes (13%)
5. Crossword 3203 (19%)

Note: It is treacherous at present as three of the worst five games have co-existing sister versions for sale at the same time. Be careful not to play the poor version.

$1 - $2 Game Update

Fast 200s is a top choice. Of the rest, Wild 8s is playable.

$3 Game Update

This has been a wasteland for games of late. Things are beginning to turn over as of late. Frogger 1757 is the best choice of the $3 games, followed by Cashingo.

$4 - $5 Games

Money Multiplier is the best choice but a new Cash For Life has been initiated at it already ranks as the second best game in this group. If you play it, be careful to play game 1161 and not 1162. There are no Grand Prizes left for 1162.

$10 - $20 Games

Prestige is the clear choice in this area.

Comings and Goings

The holidays are upon us. Four new games were launched last week in recognition of Christmas stockings everywhere: $1 Peppermint, $2 Stock Stuff, $3 Holly Jolly, and $5 Jack Frost. The OLG also introduced a new Cash For Life and Crossword 3202. That's a lot of new action. Of all the new games, Cash For Life begins with the best rating, followed by Jack Frost.

Crossword 3200 was retired from play with 1 Grand Prize and only 4% of its tickets left to be sold. That is the lowest such figure I have seen so I can't fault the OLG for retiring the game with the single Grand Prize left outstanding. Who knows, maybe it has been purchased and is just waiting to be scratched.

Personal Play

Three Prestige tickets contained two winners totaling $40. Not enough to bump any of my numbers up significantly. I continue to cash at a higher than expected rate but I can't seem to snag anything other than little prizes. My return on investment to date this year is 72%.

I was in Tim Horton's on the weekend. Beside me was an elderly lady who was carefully scratching her Horse Shoes ticket. After she was finished she passed it to her daughter who double checked to be sure that it was a loser. They even read to rules on the reverse side of the ticket. Hats off to the pair of them. As players, we must be in control of how we are playing. To ignore those considerations is the first step in allowing for potential chicanery by others. I didn't have the heart to tell the two ladies that Horse Shoes is a terrible choice. None of its Grand Prizes were left to be won. I think that they would have been too upset by that little nugget.

In my next blog posting I'm going to dig into Lotto Max but before I do that I'd like to provide readers with a mini analysis, written by Peter Gross, as part of his bi-monthly editor's column in "Down The Stretch" newspaper that covers activity on the horse racing circuit (www.downthestretchnewspaper.com):

"Have you tried the 'new' Lotto 649, which promises 'more ways to win'? One of the new ways to win is to have 2 out of 6 numbers plus the bonus. The odds are 1 in 81.2 of doing that. The OLG pays you $5 on a $3 ticket. At the track we call that 3 to 5...and don't get me going on about 3 of 6. Used to be you paid $1 for a 649 ticket and if you got 3 of 6 you were paid $10. Now if you get 3 of 6 on a $3 ticket you get... $10."

Good points by Peter. These games are essentially "Winner Takes All" propositions. We Instant Games players are much more democratic than that. Sure, the prospect of the big win is enticing but we need to have fun while we're playing as well as have the chance to win a Grand Prize, albeit a smaller one.

I hope all readers had the opportunity to reflect upon the lives cut short and the families left in mourning on this important day. The British Expeditionary Force lost 64,000 men on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on July 1st 1916. Reflect on that for a minute.

This will be a short week as you can look for the next update before the coming weekend.

Doug