Another 30,000 - 15X The Money tickets were sold this past week and the remaining Grand Prize remains an illusive dream. The game has been de-activated yet several posters have had success finding tickets in their respective areas. Although only 12% of the Top Prizes remain to be claimed for the game, 20% of the Top Prize money remains to be claimed. In addition to the outstanding $75,000 Grand Prize there is one of three $7,500 prizes and one of four $5,000 prizes.
Your odds to snag the biggy are one in 400,000. Only 20X The Money has better odds to win a Grand Prize but that version of the current family of games has a very poor small prize return.
New to the shelves is a second version of Crossword. The earlier version is about 75% completed. I rate the game in 7th place which is very good to begin its run. The sister version is currently in 4th place so don't worry about which version you buy.
Also new is Bingo Doubler. CL66 and Tommy each have write-ups on the game that are in the comments to last weeks update. I rate the game as mid-pack.
After a good week two weeks ago, last week cut me back to size. Forty-two dollars of tickets (Classic White, Cross Tripler, and 15X The Money) had three winners of $14.
Two articles this week from the Sault Star concerning OLG jobs in that community. The first one
( http://www.saultstar.com/2015/08/10/concerns-voiced-over-potential-job-losses-with-privatezation )
speaks to a vote that OLG workers undertook to join the Public Service Alliance of Canada. The workers are concerned that the OLG's Modernization plan may cost jobs in the Sault.
The second article ( http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/details.asp?c=97062 ) details some gobbledygook from OLG Media Relations Manager Tony Bitonti. You see, the OLG Brass swooped in to the Sault for a board meeting last week. The usual fanfare preceded them about all the jobs that the OLG was providing to the community. But it turns out that some of the locals wanted to double check some of the claims and that's when the prevarications were rolled out.
Make no mistake, Modernization = Privatization and those who are wondering how the OLG is going to increase its revenue after inviting private casino operators to build and operate Ontario's casinos are right to be asking questions. Any notion that Stephen Rigby and his band of merry men are going to be bossing American Casino companies around is pure folly. The reverse will be true.
I am of the view that the OLG will never come close to increasing its contributions to the Province by $1.3 billion per year. It could well go down and I'm sure that the brain trust is already preparing speaking points about how horse racing is to blame.
How fitting that Labour Day is approaching. Stick together OLG staff and have a skeptical eye about what you are told!
Doug
Your odds to snag the biggy are one in 400,000. Only 20X The Money has better odds to win a Grand Prize but that version of the current family of games has a very poor small prize return.
Top Rated Games
- $3 15X The Money #1840
- $3 Scrabble #1835 - 2nd best top prize ratio and an average small prize return.
- $3 Super Bingo #3018 - slightly positive top prize ratio and the best small prize availability
- $3 Crossword #3209 - above average on all factors.
- $1 Bingo Express #1823 - 450,000:1 to win $10,000 for a buck.
Games To Avoid
- $1 5X The Money #1838 - terrible choice
- $5 500 Frenzy #1853 - rating system does not like it but posters have won two of the $500 prizes.
- $2 Fast 200's #1817 - Terrible small prize return - $200 or bust.
- $4 Cash For Life #1167 - 1 of 3 Grand Prizes left and two thirds of the float remains.
- $3 Tetris #1832 - no Grand Prizes.
Games Devoid Of Grand Prizes
- 5X The Money
- Tetris
Comings and Goings
Extraordinary and Silver Gold were retired this past week. Silver Gold never amounted to anything during its innocuous run. All the Grand Prizes were claimed and 22% (600,000 tickets) of the float remained to be sold. Extraordinary was an extraordinary flop. Over seven million tickets from the original float of 15,000,000 were unsold. The game was on the market for almost a year and a half. Four of its $2,000,000 Grand Prizes were returned to lottery heaven when the lottery gods pulled its plug. It will be interesting to see if Extreme does any better.New to the shelves is a second version of Crossword. The earlier version is about 75% completed. I rate the game in 7th place which is very good to begin its run. The sister version is currently in 4th place so don't worry about which version you buy.
Also new is Bingo Doubler. CL66 and Tommy each have write-ups on the game that are in the comments to last weeks update. I rate the game as mid-pack.
Personal Play
After a good week two weeks ago, last week cut me back to size. Forty-two dollars of tickets (Classic White, Cross Tripler, and 15X The Money) had three winners of $14.
Post Script
Two articles this week from the Sault Star concerning OLG jobs in that community. The first one
( http://www.saultstar.com/2015/08/10/concerns-voiced-over-potential-job-losses-with-privatezation )
speaks to a vote that OLG workers undertook to join the Public Service Alliance of Canada. The workers are concerned that the OLG's Modernization plan may cost jobs in the Sault.
The second article ( http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/details.asp?c=97062 ) details some gobbledygook from OLG Media Relations Manager Tony Bitonti. You see, the OLG Brass swooped in to the Sault for a board meeting last week. The usual fanfare preceded them about all the jobs that the OLG was providing to the community. But it turns out that some of the locals wanted to double check some of the claims and that's when the prevarications were rolled out.
Make no mistake, Modernization = Privatization and those who are wondering how the OLG is going to increase its revenue after inviting private casino operators to build and operate Ontario's casinos are right to be asking questions. Any notion that Stephen Rigby and his band of merry men are going to be bossing American Casino companies around is pure folly. The reverse will be true.
I am of the view that the OLG will never come close to increasing its contributions to the Province by $1.3 billion per year. It could well go down and I'm sure that the brain trust is already preparing speaking points about how horse racing is to blame.
How fitting that Labour Day is approaching. Stick together OLG staff and have a skeptical eye about what you are told!
Doug
For those of us who like aiming for the biggie prize, there's really only one option in the OLG Instant game world and that's the Cash For Life (CFL) game. The game occasionally shows up with different variations ($1, $2, $10, Double, Bonus) but I'll talk specifically of the regular $4 version, CFL4.
ReplyDeleteI usually get a couple from my favourite retailer every week hoping to "get a LIFE" but am usually mildly satisfied with just hitting something that I could pour back into next week's "hope" pile. It really is a long shot game.
The past two series haven't been kind to us regular players. The Double CFL version (D-CFL) had 99% of the prizes at $12 (3x) or less. You either won 3x or less or nothing. I mean, someone had to pay for those 2x top prizes, right?
The recent series already has two of the top three prizes taken with about two-thirds of the float remaining (see Doug's note above). That's a 1-in-5,379,701 (approx.) chance of hitting the remaining $675,000 top prize.
So here's an alternative strategy to my usual two per week $8 CFL fix which currently buys me a 1-in-2,689,851 chance at the top prize. Play a 10 number keno (1-in-2,147,181 for a top $250,000 prize) for $2, 4 times. That's a 1-in-536,795 chance of hitting $500,000 for the same eight bucks.
So, for odds that are now 1/5th or 20% of CFL's, you get a top prize that's 74.1% of the CFL top prize. A reasonable trade off, in my opinion, at least until the CFL odds improve or that last prize is taken and a new series introduced.
Make no mistake, it's still incredibly hard to hit the top prize. GLTA.
TmF
The keno betting selection slips let you choose a wide variety of grand prizes at different prices for different odds..myself I have a preference for the pick 9 which for a single $2 play has a $100k prize at odds at odds of 387,000
Deleteto 1..The problem with keno which you never mentioned TMF is the small prizes are also very poor paying and crappy odds.Atleast with CFL tickets you should expect around 50% of your money returned back from redeeming your small prizes.
That being said I throw a few bucks on keno also somtimes but have never won anything greater than the smallest prizes which are pitiful.Thnx for another interesting post Tommy. .
Gl everyone
I'm of a similar mind but I play Lottario when it's over 650k. I buy a $5 ticket which gives you 10 lines. Then I do a semi-martingale and buy an addition $5 ticket every week until there is a winner. I win a surprising amount of $5 prizes which helps subsidize the cost.
DeleteInteresting... and it happens to be over 650k this week too.
DeleteThe 3/6 $5 prize is 1-in-22.28 so a $5 wager would give you a 1-in-4.46 chance of winning your $5 back. A $10 wager adding an extra $5 the next week would be a 1-in-2.23 chance of winning $5, so yes, I can see how you would get a lot of $5 prizes back in pursuit of the >650k top prize.
The other categories aren't so great odds wise but if you're willing to accept a top prize - $5 prize(s) - bust situation then Lottario is the one to play.
Good Luck.
TmF
You're absolutely right, Darth. I purposely left of the SPPB percentage as the focus was just on hitting the elusive top prize, which by the way, out of interest, 8 single dollar bets on the 10 number category would have you aiming for 37% of the CFL prize with odds less than 1/10th of the current CFL odds.
ReplyDeleteThese really are two different types of games. And again, you're right in pointing out the terribly poor SPPB with Keno. For example, with the 10 number category, the expected return excluding the 10/10 is a measly 33%.
One way to work around this would be to create a mixed category play to try to increase the SPPB. For example, playing a combined 2-3-4-7 mix would increase the payback to 51.8%. Of course, the top prize would only be $5,000 for such a mix. Still pretty poor compared to a regular scratch game and no scratching pleasure either!
TmF
Remember the "keno guy"Constatine?
ReplyDeleteSometimes he would show up on the olg winner over $1k board with $70,000 or so keno prizes all in multiple prizes of $1k or $2k prizes?
He has been absent for a very long time now...I suspect the house edge ground away at him and likely broke him..
You have to be in it to win it..but there is some good insight on Doug's blog with help from cl66 Doug yourself and others which can help us focus on the better games to throw are dollars at.
Thanks for reminding me of Constatine! I forgot about him! Keno was his weakness and you're right, unchecked (ie. huge bets) and it ultimately did him in.
DeleteRecently, as I've increased the "based on" number when calculating the SPPB, I noticed more games coming in above 60%. There's really nothing in Keno that comes close to this. On top of that, Keno doesn't offer the "tactile" (actually activity) and "instant" features that scratch games do.
I don't plan on replacing instant games with Keno any time soon. Just willing to try it instead of CFL when it comes to aiming for a large prize and I thought the math was interesting when it came to that, even after ignoring the small prize issue.
TmF
Found 3 15x Money first 2 nothing, last one 15x3!! IL take $45!! There were more at the store so IL likely put that towards a few more..
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dropbox.com/s/mom6ix85j8ap3cr/20150904_205630.jpg?dl=0
Congrats! I've had little luck with the 40+ tickets that I found this week. A few $3 winners and one $10 winner so far. That's it. Still have a few more to scratch. Really puts into perspective how difficult it is to get those kind of wins!
DeleteNice win, Shannon!
DeleteOdds of 1-in-824 to hit that 15x$3.
@JayDee: You're absolutely right! Even though instant scratch cards pay back around 60%-70% (and that's including the top prize money), most wins are on the low end, 1x-5x. Hitting anything over $100 is very, very difficult.
Nice going Shannon. .all the 15x lucky tickets have dried up over my part of Ontario.
DeleteDoug, I came across your blog recently and enjoy the armchair analysis from you and the others here - it mostly confirms and much improves upon my own thoughts, so thanks to you and others!
ReplyDeleteI'd welcome input from anyone about something I am noticing:
This week, Extraordinaire is no longer on the OLG site, though I have bought a couple in stores this weekend (no time to scratch yet). I recall there were nationally 10 $200K prizes and 4 $2M left on the OLG site last week.
However, and this gets interesting - on the WCLC website, $200M Extraordinaire is still listed under "Current tickets".as well as under their listing of "Prizes remaining" (OLG should keep the unclaimed list up too, imho, even if the game has been pulled)
The WCLC prizes remaining for this game includes 11, not 10 as I recall from OLG, remaining $200K prizes. Curious, that.
But more curious to me - does the fact that the WCLC continues this game actively (so far, anyway) mean that its system "knows" something we don't?.
Does this mean that WCLC (its operators and/or computers) "knows" that, say, of the remaining 4 $2M prizes outstanding, maybe 1 is in their territory (so worth still promoting) but none are in Ontario, for example?
This seems to me like the equivalent of exploring the 'dark web', trying to peer into ticket distribution, regional/urban/rural , time and phasing, and by province, which surely has to be part of the overall "random" distribution scheme, no...?
If OLG's withdrawal of the Extraordinary game is code for "no more big prizes left in Ontario" I would prefer if they told us that, but am not sure what to think. There remain many of these tickets still on store counters across the province.
Anyone have some smarter/more informed thoughts on this?
https://www.wclc.com/games/scratch-n-win/prizes-remaining.htm#_20__200_million_extraordinaire___31022___a_nation
Welcome too our gang Randy.
Deletewith regards to extraordinaire perhaps they only update their unclaimed prize page for national games on a monthly basis.not sure couldn't find that info.
Something I found interesting was that it appears like they are still selling and maybe still activating the older national games such as cadillac and classic ruby..Makes one wonder if different jurisdictions have different rules for the national scratch games ..
Thanks for pointing that out although I can't answer it was interesting navigating around the wclc site...also I noticed they had a $30 game recently available .
GL everyone
Welcome, Randy.
DeleteInteresting observation!
Firstly, like Darth mentioned, the unclaimed prize page isn't updated in the most efficient manner. Secondly, it could simply be that Extraordinaire (and Cadillac and Classic Ruby) are still selling well out west and like all products competing for the retail dollar, it won't get pulled until otherwise.
And there just isn't enough information to tell if there are still grand prizes out west or if there were no more grand prizes in Ontario when the game was pulled.
My strategy to these national games would be to stop playing them once number of grand prizes is reduced by the initial provincial distribution percentage. For example, if Ontario gets, say, 1/3 of the tickets and there are 15 top prizes, once the prize count drops to 10, I'd stop buying since it's possible at that point there would be no more grand prizes in Ontario. A lot of assumptions with this strategy though.
TmF
After some hits and misses with the 15x (which I don't find very FUN to scratch) I went back to my favourite stand-by yesterday, the Crossword Tripler. I bought one only because I had $5 in my pocket and ended up winning $60!!! 4 red words, for $20 with the TRIPLER bonus! Yay!!! That feels good, and has become my highest odds win of 1 in about 3500. :)
ReplyDeleteNice win!
DeleteSnagging a 12x prize and defying 1-in-3500 odds would have me grinning all day!
TmF
all i have just one $250. I would like to buy a beer for everyone here. does friday night at sneaky dees work for everyone?
ReplyDelete3$drink night.? I'll buy a round too. And nochos
DeleteCashingo #1847 (based on 2800 games) SPPB: 1-in-3.24 (30.9%) hit rate, 58.9% expected payback.
ReplyDeleteAlso note that 99.99% of the outstanding tickets are worth less than $100. That is, only 330 tickets out of 3,004,400 are worth $100 or more. Good luck. I mean it!
DeleteTmF
So, I have been researching Keno recently and what I've discovered is quite interesting. It seems there are "systems" out there ranging from software and "wheeling" devices. Anything and everything to help one pick numbers and gain advantage in this game of chance.
ReplyDeleteOne individual who claimed to win 7/7 several times and even 8/8 once was quite adamant about his system being superior to quick picks. Whether it was dividing the board into halves or quadrants or looking at number groups (units, tens, twenties, ones, twos, threes, etc.) and their probabilities all figured in his success.
Still, if the game was played by drawing 20 balls from 70 balls printed with ALIEN SYMBOLS, wouldn't the odds and gameplay be the same? It's only because numbers are used that humans see patterns. After all, we're taught that 2 follows 1 and 3 follows 2, etc.. We're taught that the "tens" are really 1x10+unit number. We're taught that there are even numbers and odd numbers or that there are numbers that are multiples of other numbers, etc.. Even numbers that show up on two dimensional printed boards can be easily re-arranged. A 70 number board can be presented as a 2x35 grid, a 7x10 grid or a 5x14 grid. Physical location is meaningless.
Ultimately, I've concluded that the odds are the odds. If you're winning above the expected return, congratulations, good for you! If you're not, well, luck just isn't with you. If you have a system and it keeps you occupied and you're enjoying yourself then that's fine too. But when it comes to Keno... there are no winning systems. Guess I'll just stick with my weekly CFL tickets!
TmF
P.S. My Keno-instead-of-CFL tickets lost. True, a short term result but I still lost. 8-)).