you are crazy if you think I'm going to do that much math on a Saturday afternoon with College Football, MLB, and NHL on TV.

I didn't really look at everything, but say there's 1 or 2 million dollar tix out there that were already won by somebody (or some of the bigger prizes), the guy at the convenience store isn't going to give you that info, so your ev goes way down on the ticket(s) you were dumb enough to buy from him.

 

Originally Posted by Moosebabies

i come up with $17.14

Can you explain how you got that?

It is a good point that if a top prize was won but not redeemed it would greatly skew the numbers. This is the biggest scratch-off ever in DC tho, it seems to me like it will be big news as soon as someone wins the top prize.

I also did notice the top prize is paid over 20 years, which does reduce the value, is there a way to calculate by how much?

all the equity is in the 2 $1m tickets....still a looooongshot!

 

Originally Posted by joeykukzMSU

tree-fiddy bob.

damnit.

 

Originally Posted by canad010

Hate to rain on the lotto parade, but you'd have to pay ~40% taxes :( Making this massive-EV, like a lottery should be.

This is also a very good point, without taxes is it +EV?

With taxes how much would the average value have to be to be plus EV?

 

Originally Posted by safeinst

I also did notice the top prize is paid over 20 years, which does reduce the value, is there a way to calculate by how much?

the lottery annuity is usually 30yrs and the lump sum payout is usually about half of the annuity, so it would probably be around 55-65% of 1million for a lump sum right now.

Also, it is pretty common when people win a huge prize of $1mm+ that they don't redeem it right away and seek financial/legal advice before doing so

 

Originally Posted by Moosebabies

Well I calculated the total amount of prizes offered, which was $8,222,675, then divided that by the amount of tickets outstanding, which based off the chances of winning the top prize being 1:240,000, would be 480,000 tickets. It's actually $17.13. I didn't even take into account the amount of prizes already won, since we don't know how many tickets have been sold, lost, unreedemed. So the $17.13 is based off the beginning of the game, there isn't enough information to accurately calculate what the value is of them now.

Moosebabies, thank you for the thought out in depth explanation.

What I was thinking is we could estimate the number of tickets already sold based upon the number of winning low value tickets already won. There are 39% of the 20$ tickets left, 39% of the 30$ tickets left, and 38% of the 40$ tickets left. So if we estimate that there are around 40% of the original tickets remaining (60% have been sold), then whats the average value per ticket based upon prizes remaining? (also is my logic correct in estimating tickets already sold?)

Well if you want to make the assumption that 40% of the tickets remain unsold and that 40% of all prizes remain except for the top prize (which both remain) we can calculate the new expected value. So that would leave you with $4,489,070 in prizes left, with 192,000 tickets unsold, which would put you right around $23.38. Still, even if niether of the million dollars tickets have already been sold, the points above regarding the annuity factor and taxes, still make this a long way from being +EV.

I did contract security work for OTB in New York before I went and did coastline security in Florida. The cleaner found a key to the auto scratch-off machine one night in one of the branches. Got in and took roughly $4300 in ticket value. Cashed nearly $500. It's all bar coded, so we can know where people cash the tickets. Invest 4300, get back 500. GG

I am a pick 3 lotto player myself, which I admit is -ev. Except, I run good. House monies, ftw.

 

Originally Posted by XXEDPXX

But the original charge was $30, where did the extra $1 go?

Nice problem, had me thinking a bit (and a lot longer than necessary, damn vaporizer).

The original cost has nothing to do with this. That is why this stumper is nicely designed. It puts the erroneous/superfluous information right next to the ultimate questions. The cost basis of the room is $27. Each man paid nine dollars. And was refunded a dollar from the original cost basis of 10. No extra dollar is anywhere. All is accounted for.

People have the tendency to 9+9+9+2=29 (edit: and not, 9+9+9-2=25, which is correct), and then it fucks them all up.

 

Originally Posted by safeinst

Here in DC there is a scratch-off that I think is +EV right now. It's called DC Black, 20$ scratch-off with $1,000,000 top prize. Based upon all of the information provided on the DC lottery web page I think we can calculate the average value per ticket. The information we need:

http://www.dclottery.com/games/scratchers/default.aspx

Top Prize Odds: 1:240,000

They then also tell us how many of each prize there are total/ already won:

Ticket Number Game Name Ticket Price Prize Amount Total Prizes Prizes Paid Prizes Remaining
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $100 9676 5928 3748
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $1000 158 88 70
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $10000 12 6 6
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $1000000 2 0 2
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $20 65170 39466 25704
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $200 3913 2380 1533
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $2000 77 45 32
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $25000 4 2 2
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $30 32585 19775 12810
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $40 32585 19942 12643
707 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK $20 $500 719 437 282

I came up with an average ticket value of around: $22.90

Is my math correct? Or am I crazy.

Ok guys, this is a Sick bump. I made this post back and October about the DC black scratch off. Well here we are now and the top prizes have still not been won. There are around 6% of the tickets left, and the two MILLION DOLLAR top prizes have still not been claimed. I have made a spreadsheet tracking the progress. This is a $20 scratch off, and right now I calculate the EV per ticket to be around $79.00. Check my math, I think I have made my spreadsheet published:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AgJHz_U2D8nrdE85UHB3Y1drUkhib 1RLanU0dGpkX1E&output=html

Thoughts?

 

Originally Posted by safeinst

Ok guys, this is a Sick bump. I made this post back and October about the DC black scratch off. Well here we are now and the top prizes have still not been won. There are around 6% of the tickets left, and the two MILLION DOLLAR top prizes have still not been claimed. I have made a spreadsheet tracking the progress. This is a $20 scratch off, and right now I calculate the EV per ticket to be around $79.00. Check my math, I think I have made my spreadsheet published:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AgJHz_U2D8nrdE85UHB3Y1drUkhib 1RLanU0dGpkX1E&output=html

Thoughts?

How are you calculating EV when you don't even know the odds to win a prize? Just because there are X prizes left to be paid and X*20 > $Prizes_remaining doesn't mean it's +EV. To prove why, just imagine 1,000,000,000 $20 tickets that don't win anything. That hurts your EV right? Well you didn't account for that (as far as I can tell).

You should look at your $79 calculation and realize it doesn't pass the laugh test.

 

Originally Posted by safeinst

We can estimate number of tickets remaining and prizes remaining. We do know the odds to win a prize, because we know the ticket pool size, we know how many of each tickets were initially issued, and how many are left (as told to us by the DCLottery website)...... I don't get your point... at all.

No where on the DC lottery website does it say how many *tickets* are remaining (as far as I can tell). It says how many prizes there are, and how many prizes are left. I'm telling you that the error in your calculation (from looking at your spreadsheet) is that you don't know the odds of winning and/or how many tickets there are. The missing piece is essentially how many 0 value tickets there are. You don't know that, and so your number is wrong.

You know the total number of prizes being handed out is fixed, and you know the odds of winning any one of those prizes 1:3.14

So you should be able to multiply the number of prizes by 3.14 to get an approximation of tickets sold.