Showing posts with label Ontario Lottery Corporation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ontario Lottery Corporation. Show all posts

Thursday, 14 May 2015

Diamond 7's Rule - Get Em Now

With an estimated 12% of the float remaining, this game is becoming difficult to find. Posters report finding pockets of tickets but with the de-activation date now two weeks past, its becoming slim pickens. Only an estimated 20,000 tickets were sold last week leaving 370,000 either in the distribution warehouse or in a batch that will never be printed. The game has two of its seven Grand Prizes left to claim. Twenty-one percent of the money allocated to prizes of $107 or more is left to be claimed versus 12% of the float. The positive ratio of 1.71 is the best of any game currently for sale and your odds of snagging a Grand Prize of 185,000:1 are the best of any game outside the new Fast 200's.  This game is a clear choice but it's time is limited. The OLG is about to credit those two Grand Prizes to their column very soon.

DIAMOND 7s


Top Rated Games


  1. $5 Diamond 7's #1822 - The clear choice.
  2. $3 QFG Crossword #3208 - Good numbers but the 2 million:1 to win $50,000 leaves me cold. 
  3. $5 Cross Tripler #1810 - Well rated on both scales. CL66 won $100 on the game last week. 
  4. $3 Keno #1416 - A game with potential but still early. 
  5. $3 Bingo #3016 - Prefer this game to the two $3 games rated ahead of it. 


Games to Avoid


  1. $4 DBL Cash For Life #1170 - If you like this game, buy Lotto Max instead. 
  2. $2 Fast 200's #1817 - If you don't mind $200 Grand Prizes, go for it. 
  3. $2 Blackjack #1804 - Has been a dog for two months. Sales are a trickle. Bye bye, 
  4. $2 Cash For Life #1169 - Very bad on both rating scales. 
  5. $10 Bejeweled #1786 - Trying to climb out of the dog house. 


Best Games If You Only Want A Grand Prize


  1. $2 Fast 200's - Yeah, but the Grand Prize is only $200 and the low prize churn is the worst. 
  2. $4 DBL Cash For Life - 4 million:1 to win the GP, but its a doozy. 
  3. $10 Bejeweled - Low prize churn is poor. 
  4. $5 Diamond 7's - sitting in the sweet spot.
  5. $20 Extraordinary - over a year old and more than 50% of the float remains!


Games With No Grand Prizes Left


  • $3 Words With Friends
  • $3 Wheel of Fortune
  • $3 Crossword 
  • $3 Cashingo
  • $2 Black Jack


Comings and Goings

Fast 200's was introduced this week. These types of games play havoc with my rating system. The game has 3791 Grand Prizes of $200. One has to get down to $10 prizes to find a category that has more prizes than the Grand Prize. 12.5% of the revenue of the game goes to the Grand Prize winners which is more than even the Double Cash For Life game. The trade off is the low prize area where only 34% of the game's revenue is returned to people who win more than the cost of the ticket and less than $100. That is the worst such number by 10%!

No games were retired this week.


Personal Play

Managed to find a trove of Diamond 7's. Only bought eight hoping that some would be left for this week. Won on three of them for a total of $31. Not bad. Fingers crossed that some remain today.


In Conclusion


Today's gripe is with this story in the Sault Star.

http://www.saultstar.com/2015/05/12/more-jobs-available-at-olg .

The local MPP, David Orazietti, is heralding the addition of two senior positions to the OLG corporate office in the Sault. I'm sure that Mr. Orazietti is a fine representative and I am a big supporter of Government distributing its operations whenever possible. I believe firmly that the OLG benefits from having a part of its operation located in the Sault. People who grow up there have an opportunity to stay in their community and the OLG is able to attract high quality staff who are likely to remain in their positions for extended periods of time. The OLG loves to trumpet the trickle down benefits of slot places and casinos in communities. Those benefits are questionable at best but there is no denying that the OLG jobs do provide that benefit.

What Mr. Orazietta fails to address (he is understandably compromised) is that there are, as of the 3rd Quarter 2014/15, 274 people who work at the Casino in the Sault. Those 274 people earn, on average, $50,000 per annum. Those are also important jobs for the Sault --- far more important than the two Sunshine List positions being added to the community. When the OLG sells the existing casino to a private operator, that company will only be contractually required to maintain those positions for one year. After that, those people can expect to have their positions and their salary level threatened. Mr. Orazietti should be concerned.

Good Luck to all.

Doug







Saturday, 28 February 2015

Cross Tripler #1791 - Long In The Tooth but Still On Top


Sales have stalled for the top rated game due to the scarcity of tickets left to be purchased. Given that the game's deactivation date was Feb 6th we can expect it to be deleted from the Outstanding Prize listing shortly. Four $100,000 winning tickets remain outstanding and only an estimated 11% of the float remains to be sold. Pick them up, if you can find them.

(Orange version of the game depicted below)

CROSSWORD TRIPLER


Top Rated Games


  1. $5 Cross Tripler #1791 - A strong choice. Worth the search for tickets. 
  2. $10 Classic Ruby #1792 - Best churn for any current game and a positive top prize rating. 
  3. $5 Diamond 7's #1822 - 60.6% churn and a 1.29 positive top prize rating. 
  4. $5 20X Lucky #1808 - 4 of 7 Top prizes remain and only 26% of the float. 
  5. $3 QFG Crossword #3208 - New game has a very high churn rate. 


Games to Avoid


  1. $4 Double Cash For Life #1170 - The most top heavy game just lost a grand prize.
  2. $2 Black Jack #1804 - All three remaining Grand Prizes claimed last week. A dud as of now. 
  3. $10 Bejeweled #1786 - Poor churn and 1/2 the grand prizes gone in 1st 1/3 of float. 
  4. $3 Scrabble #1821 - Top 4 prize categories all claimed. Largest prize left is $5000.
  5. $3 More Lucky Lines #1794 - Game becomes less horrible as it winds down. Still horrible.


Games with most $/dollar spent going to Grand Prize Winners


  1. Bonus Cash For Life #1168
  2. Double Cash For Life #1170
  3. 20X Lucky #1808
  4. Cross Tripler #1791
  5. Fortune #1779


Games Currently Devoid of Grand Prizes


  • Scrabble #1821 - largest prize left is $5000
  • Words With Friends #1798 - largest prize left is $25,000
  • More Lucky Lines #1794 - largest prize left is $5000
  • Black Jack #1804 - largest prize left is $1000


Comings and Goings

Royal 7's was retired. It had 1 Grand Prize remaining and 19% of its float (593,000 tickets). The game was rated as a poor choice.

New is Instant Bingo. It is a $3 - 9.5 million ticket float game with 10 Grand Prizes of $50,000. There is a "fast win" prize of $15 available (1 in 50 tickets) and multiple win tickets. The payout return is 65.07% which is the third highest for $3 games.

I'm not a big fan of these types of games but they are very popular among Instant Game players. To me, a 950,000 to 1 shot to win $50,000 is not enticing. The churn rate for the game is also only average.


Personal Play

My "annus horribulus" continues with a meagre $10 return last week on $50 worth of tickets. My overall return YTD is 44% with the raffle game investment yet to be determined. I'm going to play another $50 this week just to get my numbers up to poor from terrible - I hope.


In Conclusion

I have once again tweaked my rating system. I credit the readers and commentators to this blog for helping me refine in my own mind what it is that I am looking for in a game. My rating system now involves two factors:


  1. The churn rate of the game. This is represented by the percentage of total revenue for the game that  is returned to winners of less than $100. These are the prizes that are not listed on the Outstanding Prize list. This number never changes throughout the life of the game. 
  2. The top prize imbalance. I calculate the cash value of all the prizes listed on the outstanding prize list and calculate the percentage of prizes left versus the amount when the game began. I then do the same for the actual number of prizes claimed versus how many there were to begin with. 

I then divide the former number by the latter to determine if there is an imbalance between the two. If 50% of the top prizes have been claimed but only 40% of the cash value of those prizes has been claimed, the game will have a positive rating of 1.20 (60/50).

Lastly, I combine the two factors in my secret formula to determine the final rating for the game. My comments in the future will relate to "churn" and "ratio". This is the shorthand for the two factors described above.

Here is an interesting lottery story for readers to skim: http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1494415/-i-m-just-here-to-help-leamington-resident-plans-to-donate-250-000-top-prize-from-instant-cadillac-riches-win . (A neighbour of Darth's, no doubt).

Can you smell the spring? Its coming.

Doug