Scrabble #1702 Takes Over Top Spot

The one month reign of Jacks are Wild has come to an end. A second grand prize in two weeks was claimed in Mattawa rendering the game unplayable. It will not return.

Instead, the $3 Scrabble #1702 has vaulted to the top of the list. Sixty-four percent of the tickets have been sold while 2 of the 3 - $75,000 Grand Prizes remain to be claimed. Players have one chance in 519,000 to win $75,000 for a $3 investment. Players would also be justified in playing Keno #1409. It is the second rated game and remains number 1 in the value play evaluation. The best pure chance to win a Grand Prize is Instant 649. You have one chance in 58,000 to win $100,000 for a $5 investment. Those are excellent odds but they come at the price of minor prizes. This is an "All or Nothing" type of game, much like the 649 draw.


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

Comings and Goings

Nothing to report this week. Five games continue to be sold for which there are no Grand Prizes left to be claimed. They are: Cross Express, Crazy 8's, Horseshoes, Cash for Life #1156, and More Lucky #1712.

Daily sales remain at slightly more than 600,000 per day. The biggest seller continues to be the jumbo Crossword #1298. The original 20 million ticket float has been 60% sold. OLG is selling them at a rate of 130,000 per day. Other Grand Prizes were claimed this week in Hamilton, Oshawa, and Renfrew.

Personal Play

Thank goodness I don't have to play Jacks are Wild anymore! Six more tickets last week contained one winner of $5. In total, I have purchased 26 of those buggers since August 30th. Six were winners (1 in 4:30) returning a grand total of $45 (35%). I could have expected to have had one more winner and almost double the return.

Lets hope that Scrabble in kinder to me.


Good Luck
Doug

Jacks are Wild #1701 Stays on Top

A player in Brampton won one of the Jacks are Wild Grand Prizes this week. Regardless, the game remains the recommended play. The $3 Scrabble #1702 is now a close second for those who are fed up with the recommended game. The best value play is Keno #1409 (not #1410 --- that is a new game). Players now have one chance in 248,000 to win $100,000 with a $5 ticket. Players may begin to find Jacks are Wild tickets becoming harder to find. Only 23% of the ticket float remains to be sold.

Best $1 - $2 game - Golden Goose
Best $10 - $20 game - Gold Tripler



Some readers have asked what constitutes a recommended play. The analysis compares the number of grand prizes remaining to be claimed to the number of total tickets left to be sold. I then subtract the percentage that the OLG takes from running the game. This figure will vary between 30 and 40 percent based upon the cost of the ticket. The cheaper the ticket, the higher the take out. This measurement assumes that players are buying tickets to win the grand prizes.

The value play measures the players chance to win $1000 or more and takes into account the cost of the ticket. Players would correctly assume that a $5 ticket has a greater chance to win $1000 than a $1 ticket but is the chance five times greater? The value calculation sorts that out.

Comings and Goings

A tip of my cap to the OLG for retiring the disasterous (for the OLG) Classic Black Game. Fully 60% of the tickets remained to be sold and all six grand prizes had been claimed. There remain 5 games for sale without a grand prize among them. It's a mystery to me how and why the OLG makes the decision to retire games. They should be more transparent.

New Games include $3 Instant Keno #1410, $3 More Lucky Lines #1712, and $10 Turbo Cash #1713. The chances of winning more than the cost of the ticket are 1:7.0, 1:7.4, and 1:7.2 respectively.

Personal Play

A purchase of 6 Jacks are Wild tickets in Brockville yielded 1 winner of $10. My overall play continues to lag expectations.

The Collingwood player from last week strolled into Toronto on the weekend, bought 10 tickets, and cashed for $95 including a $50 winner. Well done.

The Scarborough hard luck player purchased a total of 10 tickets over the past week cashing for $70. Another success.

Meanwhile in Mississauga, a three ticket purchase returned $10.

Looks like I was the biggest loser this week - again!

Good Luck
Doug

Jacks are Wild #1701 Continues on Top

Another 5% of the Jacks are Wild #1701 passed through the sales windows this week without a grand prize being uncovered. Thirty percent of the ticket float remains to be sold and 4 out of the 6 grand prizes remain to be claimed. This game is a strong play. The second rated game continues to be Keno #1409. Four percent of its tickets were sold without a winner coming forward. This game is also a strong recommendation  as it remains the top $1000 value play as well.



Crossword #1298 remains the big seller averaging 200,000 tickets being sold. In total, 5.3 million tickets were sold over the past week. The daily average was 660k.

While in the USA I purchased a scratch and win ticket in both Florida and New York State. I applaud the OLG for making public much more information about its games than our American neighbours do. The Florida web site www.flalottery.com is visually pleasing but it fails to provide any information about outstanding prizes. The NY State Lottery site www.nylottery.ny.gov provides information on outstanding grand prizes but also indicates that new blocks of tickets for its games can be issued at any time. Neither State provides its players with the concrete information that the OLG does so hats off to our government.

The remaining "evil" games are: Crazy 8's, Horseshoes, More Lucky Lines, Cash for Life #1155, and Classic Black 2. In total, 224,000 tickets were sold for which the grand prizes had all been claimed. And yet, the OLG keeps these games alive while canceling games that have Grand Prizes outstanding. Not good.


Comings and Goings

Deal or No Deal #1694 and Bonus Keno #1411 were retired this week. We're sorry to see Deal or No Deal go as 15% of its float remained to be sold and one of its 3 Grand Prizes remained to be claimed.

New games this week include the $1 Bingo Express #1707 and Black Jack Tripler #1716. Bingo Express is a simple game. You have one chance in 3.84 to have a winning ticket. 52% of the prizes are for more than the cost of the ticket. You have one chance in 45 to win more than $2.

Black Jack Tripler provides one chance in 4.18 to win and 58% of prizes exceed the cost of the ticket. A special aspect of this game is that 40% of all winners win more than once on the same ticket.

Nine grand prizes of $50,000 or more were claimed this week. Winners hailed from: Midland, London, Dundalk, North York (2), Ottawa, Etobicoke, Oakville, and another out of province winner from St. Hubert. That's two prizes in two weeks for visiting Québecois.

Personal Play

I went crazy this past week purchasing 4 Jacks are Wild tickets and 4 Keno tickets. There was one winner of each returning $5 in each instance. The cash rate to date is 1: 5.3 tickets with an ROI of .27. Poor. Back to normal play this week.

On the plus side I can report that a reader bought 3 Jacks are Wild in Scarborough winning twice for a total of $40. He reinvested part of the profit winning twice more. In total, he bought 7 tickets and showed a profit of $45.

Best of Luck

Doug

Jacks are Wild #1701 Remains the Best

Jacks are Wild made it through the week selling another 4% of its ticket float without losing a Grand Prize. At this point in time, 36% of the tickets remain to be sold and 4 of the 6 Grand Prizes of $100,000 are still out there somewhere. The next best games are Keno #1409 and Crossword #1298 (not the much worse #1297).

Determining which is the "best" game to play can have more than one interpretation. For the main purpose of this blog, it is the percentage of Grand Prizes that remain versus the percentage of tickets that remain to be sold. I'm assuming that we all play the games with the goal to win the grand prize. I also look at the best value chance to win $1000 or more. This evaluation  takes into account the cost of the ticket. If one buys a $5 ticket, one would expect to have a better chance to win $1000 then if one bought a $2 ticket, but is it a better play after taking into consideration the cost of the ticket? I also look at the absolute chances of winning the grand prize. Each of these evaluations can produce different recommendations.

What is more straight forward is games to avoid playing. At present, four games are in play for which all of the grand prizes have been claimed. They are: $2 Crazy Eights #1699, $3 Horseshoes #1705, $3 More Lucky #1651, and $10 Classic Black #1697. The OLG has a big problem with the latter. They're selling $10 tickets for a game where all of the $500,000 prizes have been claimed. In fact, 60% of the ticket float remains to be sold. Buyer beware. The OLG sold 140,000 tickets for these games last week. Make sure that you're not in that group.

The best $1000 Value Play remains Keno #1409. This game is also the second rated game to win the grand prize. If it's instant gratification you're after then the $5 Instant 649 is a good play. The odds of winning $100,000 are 56,000:1. What you give up is the chances to win smaller prizes; there are very few as compared to other games.

Comings and Goings

No departures, one addition this week. The $1 BingoExpress was introduced. Details of the game have yet to be posted.

Two Grand Prizes were claimed this week. Bingo #3007 had a $50,000 winner in Aurora and Super Bingo #3010 had a $50,000 prize claimed in Amherstburg.


Personal Play

A wipe out week. Four Jacks are Wild tickets played, no winners. I'm now 1 for 8 with an ROI of .25 for this game. I'm due!


Doug

Jacks are Wild #1701 - Damaged but Still #1

A lucky visitor from Boucherville, Quebec claimed one of the Jacks are Wild grand prizes last week. Regardless, the game remains the best choice albeit somewhat diminished from last week. Players have a 323,000:1 chance to win $100,000 with a $5 investment. Other recommended games are $3 Keno #1409 and $3 Bingo #3007.

Games to avoid are: $10.00 Classic Black #1697, $3.00 Lucky Dragon #1708 and $3.00 More Lucky #1651. The OLG should be ashamed to continue to sell Classic Black tickets. All six of the grand prizes have been claimed yet they sold 130,000 tickets over the course of the week. The problem they face is that 60% of the ticket float remains to be claimed. The game is a loser for them. The best strategy, from their perspective, is to continue to pump the tickets. Your strategy is to avoid the game like the plague.

The big seller continues to be the $3.00 Crossword #1298. With a ticket float of over 20 million, the tickets will be predominantly displayed where you play. To date, 24% of the tickets have been sold and only 1 of the 16 grand prizes has been claimed. This game may get interesting. The best chance at winning $1000 (or more) continues to be $3.00 Keno #1409 although the $2.00 Golden Goose #1700 is sneaking up on the long time king of this evaluation method.

Comings and Goings

We said goodbye to MultiMult, one of the Cash for Life games and one of the Crossword games. No loss there. New games include the $3.00 Scrabble #1702 and the $1.00 Fast 100 #1688. The latter is a novel game based upon the premise of a small grand prize but offering many of them. There are over 3700, $100 prizes in the game but nothing larger. If you play this game, pray that you don't get a $30 winner. The odds of getting that prize are 10,000:1 whereas the odds of winning $100 are 800:1. You don't want to use up your luck that way. It's a bit upside down but the goal of the game is to maximize the number of $100 prizes, as indicated by the name of the game.

Personal Play

Four Jacks are Wild tickets last week contained one $10 winner. That is a .50 ROI (Return on Investment) - less than expected. I will be henceforth reporting on my personal play on a weekly and accumulated basis.

Good Luck to all.

Doug

Banco #1591 Takes Over the Top Spot

The Gold Tripler game has been knocked out of top spot for the time being after one of the three top prizes was claimed last week. That's unfortunate but I can't say that I am displeased. I bought a total of six Gold Tripler tickets over the course of three weeks. Total return was $15 on one winning ticket. Not an encouraging result.

The new top game is Banco #1592 but this may prove to be a frustration for readers of this blog. Only 20% of the tickets remain and a seller last week told me that they had been asked to return all of their unsold tickets to head office. The game is still showing on the "Unclaimed Prize Page" but not on the game menu. Further, there appears to not have been any large prizes claimed over the course of the past week. How can the OLG cancel a game when 2 of the 3 grand prizes remain outstanding after having sold 80% of the tickets? Good question. I have asked the OLG that very question and their answer is troublesome.

If you can't find any Banco tickets, the Cash for Life #1155 is playable and the $1 Go Banana's game is also looking good with all 6 of its $10,000 grand prizes remaining to be claimed and 38% of the total tickets sold.

The big sellers this week were the $3 Horseshoes game and the brand new $5 Jacks are Wild game. Jacks are Wild only has one winner in every 3.86 tickets, which is a little high, but compensates that number with the fact that 73% of its total prizes are greater than the $5 selling price of the ticket. That's good. Players love new games but the preferred strategy is to stay away from them until the odds begin to work in ones favour. Horseshoes sold 16% of its ticket float and Jacks are Wild sold 9%. The best pure play for the jackpot is the $5 Instant 649 game. You have one chance in 57,000 to win $100,000. If you'd be happy with $1000, then Keno #1409 gives you one chance in 36,000 for your $3. The OLG retired the 20X Lucky Game this past week. That game was a disaster for them. Fully one half of the tickets remained to be sold and all of the grand prizes were claimed and had been claimed for the past month. That is sure to prompt a meeting at OLG Headquarters!

I mentioned last week that I was going to discuss the Florida Lottery site. I'm going to push that back a week as this posting has already become too long. I try to keep it short enough that you can read it in less than one minute.

Good Luck.