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