United States
Member #159,610
October 2, 2014
252 Posts
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I have no clue where you guys find these big winners I buy tics alot and nothing but $20 $25. The one thing I noticed is people will just sit at the store and buy till they win then they leave so when I come walking in with my $20 to donate I'm buying off a roll that just sold a winner so odds are two winners back to back not good. I try to buy from machines seem like less people use them.
Florida United States
Member #167,750
July 29, 2015
378 Posts
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Quote: Originally posted by Luckjax on Sep 17, 2015
I have no clue where you guys find these big winners I buy tics alot and nothing but $20 $25. The one thing I noticed is people will just sit at the store and buy till they win then they leave so when I come walking in with my $20 to donate I'm buying off a roll that just sold a winner so odds are two winners back to back not good. I try to buy from machines seem like less people use them.
I'm with you Luckjax. I also buy a lot of tickets and only very rarely see a return beyond ticket value. I keep imagining that eventually I'll get something that'll make up for years of losses, though.
Right now I'm wondering how good or bad the new $20 ticket coming out next week will be.
FLORIDA United States
Member #127,992
May 14, 2012
419 Posts
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i feel the only reason that 20k ticket showed up is because ticket sales in these stores have fallen and what better way to spur more buying than give the illussion that winners are around, ive been playing thiat store 5 years and 20k is the largest 20 or 25 dollar ticket sold in that time. now it will be back to nothing but losers for a long time to come
Florida United States
Member #167,750
July 29, 2015
378 Posts
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Quote: Originally posted by LONERANGER58 on Sep 17, 2015
i feel the only reason that 20k ticket showed up is because ticket sales in these stores have fallen and what better way to spur more buying than give the illussion that winners are around, ive been playing thiat store 5 years and 20k is the largest 20 or 25 dollar ticket sold in that time. now it will be back to nothing but losers for a long time to come
You might be on to something. There are stores I refuse to go to anymore because they've sold me nothing but losers. Surely others behave this way as well. Believing winning tickets are around would give folks a reason to return to places like that.
Jacksonville United States
Member #153,799
March 26, 2014
818 Posts
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Sorry, I'm on a rant today. The Florida Lottery just updated the Remaining Prizes on its website and it turns out that someone won the first top prize in the $10 game $5,000 a week for life back on August 27th! They also revised their $25 Florida Cash prizes of $1M down to 20 from 24. It is irritating that they wait so long to update the prizes remaining. Also, someone won a $1M prize on the 100X the Cash because total prizes remaining dropped from 6 to 5. There has not been an announcement where the ticket was bought.
It is just frustrating buying tickets and having the lottery misrepresent prizes outstanding. I would not have been buying the $5,000 a week for life tickets if I knew a prize was already won. End of rant...
Florida United States
Member #167,750
July 29, 2015
378 Posts
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Quote: Originally posted by gatorsrok on Sep 17, 2015
Sorry, I'm on a rant today. The Florida Lottery just updated the Remaining Prizes on its website and it turns out that someone won the first top prize in the $10 game $5,000 a week for life back on August 27th! They also revised their $25 Florida Cash prizes of $1M down to 20 from 24. It is irritating that they wait so long to update the prizes remaining. Also, someone won a $1M prize on the 100X the Cash because total prizes remaining dropped from 6 to 5. There has not been an announcement where the ticket was bought.
It is just frustrating buying tickets and having the lottery misrepresent prizes outstanding. I would not have been buying the $5,000 a week for life tickets if I knew a prize was already won. End of rant...
I noticed those when I pulled the reports today as well. And I'm in the same situation where I've been buying the $5k A Week For Life only because I knew a winner had to be close. Likewise not happy that it was won weeks ago with no update. Those numbers are extremely easy to change on the site. The only reason for not changing them is to deliberately mislead people. With the billions of dollars the Lottery pulls in (and repeatedly brags about), you can't tell me they don't have staff enough to spend a few minutes a day making sure the remaining prizes are correct and the reports are up to date.
The odds never being updated is also a problem. They could easily recalculate odds regularly based on the approximate number of tickets in the field versus prizes available, but don't. One good for-instance is the $200M Spectacular. Same odds displayed as it's ever had, but there are supposedly two top prizes remaining and yet enough tickets to last for three more years? Sounds to me like they have a whole slew of junk tickets and the odds on the top prizes are far worse than what they publish. There's just no accountability over there.
SARASOTA, FL United States
Member #95,774
August 17, 2010
1,971 Posts
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Just got my computer back from the shop after 4 days ! I see $1M was won from the $25 CASH FL ticket here in Sarasota - the place is a run down Citgo station owned by towelheads - I know the gal who won - and I used to buy tickets there.
NY United States
Member #167,027
June 22, 2015
1,340 Posts
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dont want to know what towelheads are and at least there was a nice winner at a store u bought tickets at - need to go to the place by me in ny that sold the 106 million mega millions, they are an extremely lucky store as they also have had 3 1m+ scratch off wins in the last 10 years, 2 of those coming in 2014
FLORIDA United States
Member #127,992
May 14, 2012
419 Posts
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at this point i think they sell the lower end junk tickets and then reprint the thr same to keep the odds always as published...yes that would be corrupt and yes i think fla lottery would do it
Wimauma, FL United States
Member #168,850
September 20, 2015
221 Posts
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Fairly newish scratcher here compared to most here I'd think, and just found this site/registered.
A few comments/questions:
1) Current 20/25 games:
a. Current consensus on what's up with the 100x? Did most of the remaining top prizes get thrown away? Would that be the most logical conclusion? Should we buy if we happen to stumble upon them?
b. Same question essentially for 200k life. Of course there are still plenty of tickets in circulation in seems, but it's been 5 years and still 7 top prizes left? Would it be fair to assume perhaps half are thrown away? Or should we be buying these?
c. What's up with the two 10 million 25 FL Cash winners being both sold in Lake City?
d. So I've seen some intimations of junk tickets or FL lottery selling off remaining tickets they know to be junk or losers. I read a Reddit ask me anything thread from a few years ago from someone claiming to have worked in IT for one of the state lotteries. He said that essentially only the ticket vendor/mftr knows ticket numbers are winners (eg the lottery does not know), but they (vendor) do not know where any given ticket number is (eg at what retailer or perhaps lottery distribution center), however the lottery does know where any given ticket is. This is probably common knowledge among you folks, but any thoughts here, and does this not allay they conspiracy fears a bit? Although of course I have my doubts about the advertised vs. real odds, also I think the overall odds are misleading and not actually as good as they make them. Not sure how they calculate the overall odds to be so seemingly good vs some the crazy high individual odds. Also it's misleading because most of the winners are break even.
e. Said reddit thread did not address the question of possible geographic distribution of the big winners. Any thoughts or completely random? (Kind of refers back to question c.)
f. Then the question of the odds/randomness when the vendor is printing the tickets. Are all of the tickets and winners taken into account all at one time with each game? And then perhaps they print for a week or a few days and the winning/nonwinning tickets inserted into the printing from the one big pool, eg totally randomly, with rolls or time between inserting winners into the printing non taken into account? Or perhaps they insert some big winners within a certain time quota for a printing session? Who knows but these are interesting questions to consider I think, and might affect things, but I guess not of much eventual consequence for even the most serious players.
g. Any other comments or feedback along similar themes that anyone has to offer would be highly welcomed and appreciated!
Jacksonville United States
Member #153,799
March 26, 2014
818 Posts
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Quote: Originally posted by PendingSector on Sep 20, 2015
Fairly newish scratcher here compared to most here I'd think, and just found this site/registered.
A few comments/questions:
1) Current 20/25 games:
a. Current consensus on what's up with the 100x? Did most of the remaining top prizes get thrown away? Would that be the most logical conclusion? Should we buy if we happen to stumble upon them?
b. Same question essentially for 200k life. Of course there are still plenty of tickets in circulation in seems, but it's been 5 years and still 7 top prizes left? Would it be fair to assume perhaps half are thrown away? Or should we be buying these?
c. What's up with the two 10 million 25 FL Cash winners being both sold in Lake City?
d. So I've seen some intimations of junk tickets or FL lottery selling off remaining tickets they know to be junk or losers. I read a Reddit ask me anything thread from a few years ago from someone claiming to have worked in IT for one of the state lotteries. He said that essentially only the ticket vendor/mftr knows ticket numbers are winners (eg the lottery does not know), but they (vendor) do not know where any given ticket number is (eg at what retailer or perhaps lottery distribution center), however the lottery does know where any given ticket is. This is probably common knowledge among you folks, but any thoughts here, and does this not allay they conspiracy fears a bit? Although of course I have my doubts about the advertised vs. real odds, also I think the overall odds are misleading and not actually as good as they make them. Not sure how they calculate the overall odds to be so seemingly good vs some the crazy high individual odds. Also it's misleading because most of the winners are break even.
e. Said reddit thread did not address the question of possible geographic distribution of the big winners. Any thoughts or completely random? (Kind of refers back to question c.)
f. Then the question of the odds/randomness when the vendor is printing the tickets. Are all of the tickets and winners taken into account all at one time with each game? And then perhaps they print for a week or a few days and the winning/nonwinning tickets inserted into the printing from the one big pool, eg totally randomly, with rolls or time between inserting winners into the printing non taken into account? Or perhaps they insert some big winners within a certain time quota for a printing session? Who knows but these are interesting questions to consider I think, and might affect things, but I guess not of much eventual consequence for even the most serious players.
g. Any other comments or feedback along similar themes that anyone has to offer would be highly welcomed and appreciated!
@PendingSector,
Welcome to the site. Without going into tremendous detail, here are answers to your questions:
1) a. There are very few 100X books still in circulation. A significant problem is that about half of the books are in inventories at gas stations or Publix where they will never be activated because there are newer games out. You have to ask the clerk/manager to look in their inventory and then you have to purchase the entire book if you want them because the clerk/manager does not want to activate a new book that could remain unsold for a while (although the 100X sell quickly). With that said, it appears based on the instant liability reports and the books outstanding that at least 5 prizes of $1M were thrown away or deactivated. The $5M prize could be sitting in one of the gas stations or a Publix where the book is not activated and may never be activated without someone will to buy the whole thing. If you find them, you can buy them, but there are no guarantees of a big win (except for the book I bought yesterday at a Publix that had one in its inventory).
b. The $200K a year for life game has 3 top prizes of $200K left (one is due for a hit very soon) and 3 top prizes of $50K left. Looking at the serial numbers for the books and the instant liability reports, it looks like one $50k/yr prize was discarded. The only reason there are so many prizes left is that the game is old and not being sold at places like Publix (with a few exceptions) and as a result, it takes longer to sell through tickets and hit top prizes. Also, the top prizes are tough to hit (1 in 3M) so they are not going to hit very often either.
c. I call BS on the two $10M prizes being in Lake City as well. I mean it can happen, but the odds are very low. If a third one is won there, I may call foul.
d. I think the real odds are pretty accurate right after the game is released. However, as tickets are sold and the game sometimes gets reordered, the odds often get worse. The lotto website does not update odds which is why I request the instant liability reports so that I can recalculate the actual odds at a given time.
e. Should be random distribution but I don't have insider knowledge. There are more top prizes won in poorer areas but that is not totally surprising given that lower income areas sell more lotto tickets.
f. Most of the print runs are done all at once. Florida, like most states, has the top prizes fairly evenly distributed among the total ticket print run. Therefore, top prizes are won as tickets are sold. Florida will not risk that all of the top prizes in a game are won when only 50% of the tickets are sold. That's why you see top prizes in each game won months apart. The exception is the $25 games because they $1M prize odds are decent and the volume of tickets sold is very high so there are winners every week or so. But that is a product of high ticket sales, not just more prizes being released early on.
g. Good luck. If you get a big win, resist the temptation to buy a lot more tickets. For instance, if you get a $500 win, pocket $450 and you can try your luck with the other $50. I can pin my biggest losses to chasing after a good win. I will win $200 and end up buy $150 more in tickets and walk away with just $50.
In any event, I bought a whole roll of the 100X at a Publix that had it in their inventory but not out for sale. I was very pleased with the result. These are the two biggest wins. There were the typical $25, $30, $40 and $50 wins as well.
NY United States
Member #167,027
June 22, 2015
1,340 Posts
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nice a 500 and 1k in the same book
there a new $20 5m flamingo multiplier on Tuesday cannot wait to read the emergency rules on that if it looks decent will play it next time i am down in fl
Wimauma, FL United States
Member #168,850
September 20, 2015
221 Posts
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Hi gatorsrok, thanks for the detailed responses and tips; very much appreciated, and very nice hits there on the 100x.
As far as what you were saying regarding the instant liability reports for the 100x, you are implying that all of the 5M top prizes are likely still out there? According to the remaining prizes webpage, there are five 5M prizes unclaimed.
Jacksonville Florida United States
Member #23,017
October 6, 2005
1,111 Posts
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Quote: Originally posted by yellowpig on Sep 20, 2015
nice a 500 and 1k in the same book
there a new $20 5m flamingo multiplier on Tuesday cannot wait to read the emergency rules on that if it looks decent will play it next time i am down in fl
#1288 $5,000,000 FLAMINGO MULTIPLIER
Ticket Price: $20.00
Launch Date: September 22, 2015
End Date: TBA
Redemption Deadline: TBA