Scrabble Retired - Crossword #3212 Resumes Top Spot

Last week saw the end of the top game with Scrabble being retired with only an estimated 7% of its float left. Resuming the top spot is Crossword #3212 that only has 5% of its float left. This game's time at the top will be very limited. The game has only one Grand Prize of $50,000 left so be very careful when buying to ensure that the prize remains outstanding. The game has a Top Prize ration of 1.86 which is the best of any game. The game is not great with the chance to win a prize greater than the cost of the ticket of 1 in 6.93. The game offers 56.1% of its revenue returned to winners of $30 or less. Your odds to snag the Gran Prize are 665,000:1 and your chances to win $100 or more are 5325:1.





Top Rated Games

1. Crossword #3212 - its light is fading.
2. Keno #1417 - new version may make this one harder to find.
3. Lucky Dragon #1843 - 1 of 3 Grand Prizes left and 15% of its float.
4. Golden 7's #1824 - it's rare to get a $2 game this highly rated.
5. Fruit Explosion #1866 - the golden era of $3 games continues.

Games to Avoid

1. Lucky Lines #1826 - terrible game, no sales, why?
2. Jackpot #1857 - retire this game, OLG. What's the hold up?
3. Hit 100 #1849 - save your dollar.
4. Bingo Doubler #1850 - 2 or 15 Grand Prizes remain and 1/3 of the float!
5. Quest For Gold Crossword #3213 - sorry Olympians - it's a dud!

Games Devoid of Grand Prizes

• Lucky Lines
• Jackpot

Best Grand Prize Games*

1. Wild 10's
2. Extreme Millions
3. Golden Treasure
4. Money Multiplier
5. 7-11-21

* I took CL66's list of grand prizes and divided the odds of winning into the dollar value of the grand prize. i then divided that number by the cost of the ticket. The result is the best dollar for dollar value play for the available grand prizes.

Comings and Goings

A remarkable five new games came on line this past week. Two of the games (Keno and Bingo) do not have game sheets yet. The other three games were $10 Platinum, $5 Black Pearls, and $3 More Lucky Lines.

Lucky lines provides a lot of differing prizes for $3. If I have any complaint about Triple Platinum it would be that the game offers more Grand Prizes than either the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th prizes. I prefer a pyramid structure of prizes. It would bug me to win $5000 knowing that it was three times as unlikely as winning the $500,000 Grand Prize.

Our top game, Scrabble, was retired. No surprise.

Personal Play

Nothing to report.

Post Script

I received a comment last week from a friend about the ineffectiveness of the ticket checkers. That struck a chord with me. Why are they so frustrating. Another posted informed us that Alberta has "An App For That". Could it be that the OLG is looking to sell the Instant Ticket part of their business and until they do they intend to make no further investments? Comments welcome.

I noticed in the North Bay Nugget that city council is now having second thoughts about signing up for a casino. A game of cat and mouse is taking place with the OLG who is saying the right things but you know they must be gritting their teeth. There are other communities in the zone that may be interested but the OLG and any future operator only want the major community in the zone, and that is North Bay. Interesting to watch.

Also of note was the winner of $50,000 in Shanty Bay. I'm sure that is Shanty Bay's second large win. I remember looking it up on Mapquest previously.

Good luck to all.

Doug

Crossword #3212 Remains Aloft

The top rated game went through almost 300,000 tickets this week and all three of the remaining Grand Prizes remain available. Your odds of winning a $50,000 Grand Prize are one in 363,000. Twenty percent of the Top Prize money remains outstanding with only 7% of the tickets available for sale. Normally, this would place the game in the "hard to find" category but with an initial float of 15 million and no sister version of the game also on sale, I'm thinking that you should still be able to find these tickets without much difficulty.

The game has a small prize return rate ( prizes up to $30) of 56.1% which is the fifth best of any game currently for sale. Apart from the three $50,000 prizes there is also 1 of 9 $25,000 prizes and 1 of 6 $10,000 prizes  outstanding.

Top Rated Games

1. $3 Crossword #3212 - Best Top Prize ratio. 
2. $3 Scrabble #1861 - Climbing back up the ratings; only 1 Grand Prize left. 
3. $3 Fruit Explosion #1866 - Selling like hot cakes and looking good. 
4. $30 Golden Treasure #1782 - Top small prize return ratio. But, $30? Gulp. 
5. $3 Keno #1417 - Well positioned to move up. 

Games to Avoid

1. $1 Lucky Lines #1826 - Why do I dislike this family of games so much?
2. $1 Red Hot 50's #1827 - 1,647 $50 Prizes outstanding. That's all I can say. 
3. $1 Hit 100 #1849 - Not the best of times for $1 games.
4. $4 Cash For Life #1171 - a one in 2 million chance to win a GP. Waiting.....
5. $5 Cross Tripler #1846 - Lost 2 Grand Prizes this past week. 

Games Devoid of Grand Prizes

• Lucky Lines

Comings and Goings

New for play this week is the $2 Double Dollar. The game sheet has yet to be posted so I will reserve my commentary for next week. Retired this week is the Interprovincial game Classic White. The game had been listing for some time and was devoid of Grand Prizes for a few weeks. Tough to pay $10 for a super Grand Prize of which there are none available. There were still over 2.5 million tickets available for sale at its point of demise. Definitely not a winner for the OLG and its sister organizations. I wonder if it has been retired in all other jurisdictions?

Overall, eight Grand Prizes were won this past week. That's a high number. The biggest sellers (relative to their float size were Fruit Explosion and 7 11 21, each of which sold 9% of their respective floats. Each game remains readily available.

Personal Play

Nothing to report.

Post Script

We weathered the storm of our common critic. There were calls to delete his comments and I came very close to doing so. Thanks to those who posted thoughtful responses to his insulting commentary. Somewhere within his insults were some comments that deserved to be expressed. The poster is going to have a tough life if that is how he intends to influence people. Folks that angry south of border are likely the ones supporting Mr. Trump.

I received a message while preparing this entry from a reader asking the following:

For the Keno scratch tickets. I’m convinced that every number scratched is at least somewhere on the

game at least once and at most twice. My friend thinks she’s had games where the number was nowhere

on the game board.

The question delves into the area of the algorithm used by the supplier. For Keno, my sense is that numbers can appear more than once and can not appear at all but I have not measured that with any precision. Comments are welcomed.

Thanks to CL66 for posting his "OLG Insider" information. I am always interested in the retailer comments. I am of the view that focus group comments can have a significant impact on the decisions taken by an organization. A customer could call or write to the OLG repeatedly about a point without result. Your views would be ground into dust by the Customer Service machinery. Seeing the same comment on this report would have much more impact so I would encourage readers to make any views that you have known to your local retailer. Who knows, maybe you'll see them on the next report.

This week's article comes from the staid publication, Canadian Lawyer Magazine:
http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/5942/Ontarios-big-gaming-gamble.html .

I have ranted about the OLG's Modernization Plan many times before. It's interesting to see how business planning works. The OLG puts together a report with myriad assumptions and concludes that by selling off all of its assets it will return an additional $1 billion to the Provincial coffers annually. When the assumptions all prove to be false it's too late to reverse course. The OLG can then fall back on changing conditions as its excuse. The truth is that the OLG wanted to privatize its operation. As simple as that. I would respect them more if they had just said so instead of trying to mask the medicine with clap trap.

The last shoe will fall when the new casinos operated by the private corporations begins to establish returns. The OLG currently earns 75% of the profit on its operations. In the "Modernized" world a private company will invest in plant and, of course, be entitled to a reasonable profit. The risk will be taken by the Province. Its share of the pie will be reduced to 40-45%. The assumption is that 40% of a larger pie will be greater than 75% of a smaller pie. We shall see. My question is, "Who has skin in the game?" Certainly not the authors of the plan and that is disturbing.

Happy March to all.


Doug

Scrabble Loses Grand Prize - Crossword #3212 Takes Over Top Spot

With the loss of one of its two Grand Prizes, Scrabble #1861 drops into second place. Replacing it on top is Crossword #3212. This is a jumbo game with an original float of almost 15 million tickets. Only an estimated 9% of that float remains (+/- 2%) but that translates into 1.4 million tickets so you should be able to find them in your local area. Three of the original 9 $50,000 tickets remain to be claimed. Also available to be won are 2 of 9 Second Prizes, 1 of six Third Prizes, and 1 of four Fourth Prizes. That's pretty good availability for a game whose days are running short.

On the downside, only 1 in every 4.25 tickets is a winner (4th worst) and one in 6.93 is worth more than the price of the ticket (8th worst). Regardless, the top prize money imbalance places this game well on top of the list.

  

Top Rated Games

1. $3 Crossword #3212 - Very positive Top Prize imbalance. 
2. $3 Scrabble #1861 - Available tickets getting scarce. Only one GP left. 
3. $3 Keno #1417 - Best game with wide availability.
4. $3 Fruit Explosion #1866 - Good game and selling rapidly.
5. $30 250 Golden #1782 - Best of the expensive games. 

Games to Avoid

1. $10 Classic White #1844 - A stinker and still 2.5 Million tickets left. Beware!
2. $1 Red Hot 50's #1827 - Terrible choice. 
3. $1 Lucky Lines #1826 - Forget it. 
4. $1 Hit 100 #1849 - The best of the worst.
5. $4 Cash For Life #1171 - Half the Grand Prizes left and 3/4 of the tickets to sell. 

Games Devoid of Grand Prizes

• Classic White

Comings and Goings

Tripling 7's was retired this week - thankfully. Only 10% of the float remained and all the Grand Prizes had been claimed. The game was ranked 20th of the 25 games for sale.

No new games were introduced. The overall Top Prize money availability sits at 99.8% and there are 100 million tickets available for sale.

Personal Play

Nothing to report.

Post Script

Here's the kind of guy I liked to see get lucky: http://www.intelligencer.ca/2016/02/19/roblin-man-scratches-100000-win .

Here is OLG news concerning the extension of the second chance prizes for Instant Bingo. https://bingocontest.olg.ca/ec/webversion.aspx?i=63e495f1-0bd5-44bf-893f-61c3c9693035
I always wondered why they added this little feature and why they have extended it. Any wisdom from readers?

And lastly, an article from Niagara This Week wherein the Mayor of Niagara Falls is expressing concern about the impact that the Woodbine expansion will have on the Niagara Falls Casinos. http://www.niagarathisweek.com/news-story/6327690-woodbine-theatre-a-cause-for-concern-diodati/ . Of course it will impact! I have little doubt that a significant percentage of Niagara's business comes from Toronto. As soon as table games are added and a concert hall built, the bleeding away from Niagara will begin in earnest.

Best to all.


Doug

Crossword #3209 Overtakes Scrabble to Claim the Top Spot

Although Scrabble #3209 only has an estimated 10% of its float left, that still translates into 2 million tickets out there. The game features the second best return rate on prizes less than $100 and the third best Top Prize ratio. Those two factors combine to edge out the second and third rated games.

Your odds to win the $50,000 Grand Prize is 1 in a million and your chance to win a prize of $100 or more are 1 in 2000. You can expect to cash 1 in every 3.84 tickets and to cash something more than the cost of the ticket 1 in every 6.84 tickets. Those are good numbers for a $3 ticket.

 

*** Note***
Because Crossword #3210 is also for sale, I can't find an image of #3209 that I can copy into the blog. Version 3209 is a YELLOW ticket. If you want the game and can't find a yellow ticket, don't worry. Version 3210 is currently the 6th rated game.

Top Rated Games

1. $3 Crossword #3209 
2. $3 Scrabble #1835 - Dethroned former champ still a good choice.
3. $1 Bingo Express #1823 - 20% of float left and 2 of 4 Grand Prizes. 
4. $5 Cross Tripler #1830 - Best chance to have a winning ticket that you think is a loser!
5. $3 Super Bingo #3018 - Tommy's kind of game - great small prize availability. 

Games To Avoid

1. $1 5X The Money #1838 - burn them, if you can.
2. $1 Red Hot 50's #1827 - Begins life as a stinker. It's a long way up for this one. 
3. $5 Frenzy #1853 - Victim of my bias. Buy em if you like em. 
4. $2 Fast 200's #1817 - Mini Me version of Frenzy
5. $5 Crystal 7's #1848 - a $5 Game devoid of Grand Prizes. Why does it continue? GP is <$100k.

Games To Play If All You Want Is A Grand Prize

1. 500 Frenzy
2. Red Hot 50s
3. Fast 200s
4. Cash Blast
5. Extreme

Games Devoid Of Grand Prizes

• Sweet Cash
• Crystal 7's
• 5X The Money

Comings and Goings

Tetris was retired with zero grand prizes and 15% (394,000) of its float left. Its run was only 4 months long.

New for gaming pleasure are $1 Red Hot 50's and a replacement for Fortune, $10 Diamond. The former is destined to the stinker list and the latter begins its life in 9th place. The game has good potential. See the comments to last weeks entry for a more detailed review.

Personal Play

My week started off well with $21 worth of cashes on Scrabble and Crossword from 6 tickets. That was the high point of the week as the Cross Tripler and Classic White were both duds. I have purchased 5 Classic Whites to date without any success. I doubt that I'll buy any more. Oh yeah, I lost my obligatory $11 on Lotto Max. One of my lines actually had the first two numbers drawn, in order. But alas, it also turned out to be a loser.

Post Script

The OLG labour dispute continues with appeals now being made to the Premier by affected employees that if she cares so much about the pensions of Ontarians, why is she allowing some of her own employees to lose theirs. Why indeed.

I am in the process of relocating. I expect to be without internet service for a period of time. If I don't post for a while, that is the reason. I'll be back just as soon as I can.

Until then, happy scratching.


Doug

Crossword #1298 Tops the List

Last week was one of change. Both of our top games had Grand Prizes claimed. Moving in to take their place is the $3 Crossword #1298. Nine of the 16 Grand Prizes of $50,000 remain unclaimed with 25% of the tickets left to be sold. Be careful when shopping as there are now three Crossword games on the market. #1297 is on its last legs and #1299 has just been introduced this week. These are jumbo games with 20 million tickets for each. Check your ticket to ensure that you have the correct game.

Best $1 - $2 Game  - Go Bananas
Best $10-$20 Game - Turbo Cash

Keno #1409 remains the best value play. There are 64 prizes of $1000 or more and 75,000 tickets left to be sold. Instant 649 offers the best odds to win a Grand Prize at 66,000:1.

Comings and Goings

Each of the three games with no Grand Prizes left remain in play. They are: Cross Xpress, Horseshoes, More Lucky Lines #1651. No games were retired.

Two new games were added: $3 Crossword #1299 and $5 Crossword Tripler #1720. In the Crossword game there is one winner in every 3.25 tickets and 42% of the winners are for the purchase price of the ticket. In the Crossword Tripler game there is one winner in every 3.47 tickets and 47% of the winners are for the cost of the ticket.

There were several winners of $35,000 or more this week. The winners were from: Mississauga, Cambridge, Roseneath, St. Thomas, Unionville, Burford, London, and Kingston.

Personal Play

I'm beginning to break out of  my slump. Nine tickets from Keno and Scrabble contained five winners totaling $25. My win rate of 33% to date is excellent but I can't snag a good priced winner. Current Return on Investment is 47% which is poor.

Our Scarborough player cashed for $38 on 5 Scrabble tickets so he seems to be out of his funk. Another Ottawa reader reported receiving "bupkus" for her Scrabble ticket.

Good Luck with the new game.

Doug

Scrabble #1702 Becomes a Strong Play

Scrabble #1702 sold 7% of its ticket float this past week without giving up any of its $75,000 grand prizes. Two of the three grand prizes are left to be claimed and 27% of the tickets remain outstanding. The game is a strong play. Crossword #1298 and Keno #1409 are the next highest rated games but the top game is significantly better. The Crossword game is the current big seller. Almost 1/3 of total sales are of this game. Of course, the game began with a 20 million ticket float. Scarcity of tickets can become an issue but you should be able to find ample supply of all recommended games.

Keno #1409 remains the best value play and Instant 649 provides the best pure odds to win the game's Grand Prize.


Best $1-$2 Game - Go Bananas
Best $10 - $20 Game - Turbo Cash


Comings and Goings

Two games were retired this week, both of them were games for which the Grand Prizes had already been claimed. Cash for Life #1155 had been bereft of Grand Prizes since the 17 September update. The OLG only sold 2% of the ticket float from that date until today. Crazy 8's #1699 sold 6% of its float since the 27 August update. That was the date when the last Grand Prize was claimed. I applaud the decision to cancel these games even if it was a bit tardy.

Cross Express, Horseshoes, and More Lucky #1651 are the three remaining games to avoid at all costs. Buyer beware!

Personal Play

A slightly better result this week buying a combination of Keno #1409 and Scrabble #1702. A $24 investment (8 tickets) contained 3 winners returning $15. Not good by any measure but better than the shellacking I had been taking. I now stand at a win rate of 29% (which is reasonable) and a sub-par 40% return on investment. One decent winner will put me back on pace.

Good Luck
Doug

Cash for Life #1155 is the best play

Cash for Life #1155 (not #1157) sold over 370k tickets over the past ten days without having anyone hit one of the two remaining grand prizes. That's good for us. It is by far the best game to play at present and it is a popular game, so have a go at it. I'm hoping that the trend continues as the next best game is the $10 Gold Tripler and I've had a terrible experience with that game to date. It was the recommended play a few weeks ago.

The best play, if you're looking for the best value play in order to win at least $1000 remains the 1407 Keno game. The prize distribution in this game includes many more $1000 prizes than normal for a $3 Game. The trade-off is that there are fewer small prizes.

The OLG introduced two new games this week: $2 Golden Goose and a third $3 Crossword game. It's unususal to have 3 games of the same brand going on at the same time. Crossword #1296 is almost kaput with few tickets left in circulation and all grand prizes already claimed. Crossword #1297 has 24% of its 6 milllion ticket float still in circulation. Six grand prizes remain to be claimed for that game. The new game, Crossword #1298, has a massive ticket float of 20 million tickets! This game is going to be around for a long time.

In addition to Crossword #1296, Battleship, Horseshoes, and Instant Million #1661 are all games to avoid as all grand prizes have been claimed. Last week the OLG canned Banco with two grand prizes outstanding yet they continue to sell the Instant Millions game when all of its prizes are gone and there is a new version of the game for sale. The trusting public bought over 60,000 tickets for that game over the past 10 days. Remember folks, buying these tickets is gambling --- always try to get the odds on your side. That's what this blog is all about.

For personal play, I bought 4 Cash For Life tickets last week. Two were winners returning $18. That's a good result after the dry spell that I have been experiencing.

Good Luck with your play this week.