The Hall Of The Mountain Kings Tennessee United States
Member #73,902
April 28, 2009
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I don't buy scratchers very often but I'm going near VA tonight for a political gathering and I thought I would stop and buy a couple extra MM tickets and maybe a couple scratchers too. I looked up the remaining prizes for scratchers on VA's site (listed below) and saw a couple that still have a decent number of million dollar prizes left and all the other remaining prizes are listed. I'm thinking of getting a $120 MILLION CASH BLOWOUT and a MAXIMUM MILLIONS.
It dawned on me though, that they list all the remaining winning tickets but they don't list how many tickets are left where you win absolutely nothing - zip. The losers.
It seems to me that if they're going to detail the remainders they should include the remaining losing tickets too.
Chesapeake, VA. United States
Member #67,003
November 13, 2008
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I believe you can estimate the amount of losers left by taking the amount of breakeven tickets left and multiplying that by the odds of winning the top prize.
Illinois United States
Member #81,999
November 3, 2009
890 Posts
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They make you take a picture for winning even a $1000. Sheesh how about privavcy please. They better give me some cool feebies to have my name and face splatter on their website as free advertising.
United States
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December 13, 2009
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Quote: Originally posted by Rowen on Dec 15, 2009
They make you take a picture for winning even a $1000. Sheesh how about privavcy please. They better give me some cool feebies to have my name and face splatter on their website as free advertising.
On the claim form, there was a separate section for your consent to be photographed and it was optional to sign it. When I made my claim, I didn't sign the consent section initially and they offered me a baseball cap and a T-shirt to sign it. I've been watching the website and my picture hasn't been posted yet so I think that your chances of remaining anonymous are fair so long as it's just the $1,000 prize. The claim form also requires you to write a story about how you felt when winning the prize, I suppose if your story doesn't fit their current marketing campaign which is usually light and upbeat thenyour name and face won't get splattered on their website.
United States
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December 13, 2009
225 Posts
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Quote: Originally posted by rdgrnr on Dec 15, 2009
I don't buy scratchers very often but I'm going near VA tonight for a political gathering and I thought I would stop and buy a couple extra MM tickets and maybe a couple scratchers too. I looked up the remaining prizes for scratchers on VA's site (listed below) and saw a couple that still have a decent number of million dollar prizes left and all the other remaining prizes are listed. I'm thinking of getting a $120 MILLION CASH BLOWOUT and a MAXIMUM MILLIONS.
It dawned on me though, that they list all the remaining winning tickets but they don't list how many tickets are left where you win absolutely nothing - zip. The losers.
It seems to me that if they're going to detail the remainders they should include the remaining losing tickets too.
I simply take the total number of all prizes claimed, divided by the total number of prizes printed for the game, multiply that with the number of tickets printed and that's a reasonable estimate for the number of tickets sold. The number of tickets remaining will of course be the number of tickets printed minus the number of tickets sold. Estimating by a sample like this is pretty accurate and if you wanted to, you could estimate how accurate the "poll" will be using a normal distribution curve, that's why polls are always accurate to within a certain amount 19 times out of 20, it's because they used the area in the normal distribution curve between the 2.5% and 97.5% marks, you could do the same with your estimate of the tickets sold but that would be pointless.
The number of prizes claimed is information that they collect daily but the actual information on number of tickets sold isn't collected at all retailers so they don't publish it. The estimate from the prizes claim to prizes printed ratio is the closest you'll get.
The Hall Of The Mountain Kings Tennessee United States
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April 28, 2009
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Quote: Originally posted by jwhou on Dec 17, 2009
I simply take the total number of all prizes claimed, divided by the total number of prizes printed for the game, multiply that with the number of tickets printed and that's a reasonable estimate for the number of tickets sold. The number of tickets remaining will of course be the number of tickets printed minus the number of tickets sold. Estimating by a sample like this is pretty accurate and if you wanted to, you could estimate how accurate the "poll" will be using a normal distribution curve, that's why polls are always accurate to within a certain amount 19 times out of 20, it's because they used the area in the normal distribution curve between the 2.5% and 97.5% marks, you could do the same with your estimate of the tickets sold but that would be pointless.
The number of prizes claimed is information that they collect daily but the actual information on number of tickets sold isn't collected at all retailers so they don't publish it. The estimate from the prizes claim to prizes printed ratio is the closest you'll get.
I know they can't give an exact number of losing tickets still available but it seems like they should at least be able to give some kind of ballpark figure based on what they've allocated against ticket sales.
I guess the thing that bothers me is that they wouldn't even if they could. And if asked they would just tell me to refer to the odds printed on the ticket.