Its determined at the begining of the game

So the next question is: How can we tell how many tickets were issued at the beginning of the game? This would significantly allow us to adjust our odds of winning if half the tickets were gone.

I don't see anywhere on their site they pay out the full amount in cash minus taxes. In many states, incl my own, a $1mm instant prize is paid $50k over 20 years [or at least it was until recently]

does this really matter though. I am pretty sure most of us would be just as happy with 500k up front or over 20 years.

If it has full list of the winning tickets then multiply winners by 2.74

The problem is that doesn't help us


Current EV is based on number of outstanding tickets and unfound winners. It could be close to 1:1 or it could be 1:10.

No way to know if currently +EV; all you have is anecdotes that places are sold out which is a good signal and the main prizes are unclaimed which is a good signal

So if you are gonna play Michigan $10 scratchoffs, this looks to be your best bet based on info from website and a few retailers

However, there may be 1.5M tickets left for the 1.1M prizes so can't say it's def +EV or worth $18/ticket

On the other hand, there may only be 270k tickets making it ridiculously +EV right now

This matters for calculating EV

NPV of your $10 is $10
NPV of $500k cash is $500k
NPV of $500k disbursed over 20 years is <$500k

That's what I meant by "based upon the rules" -- if they don't state an annuity, it's cash. Usually, if it's an annuity you have a cash option equaling the cost of the annuity. Some states are still saying 50%, but with today's interest rates you can sell the annuity for ~60%+

Call JG wentworth !

This is why I asked about the other games. If holding on to winning tickets was common, it would make the other games appear +EV too.

OP, you said the other games appear -EV, but how bad? Off the top of my head, and based on what I've read about big lotteries (Powerball, etc.), I'd expect the ROI on a regular ticket to be -50%. Maybe scratchoffs are way different, the state can get away with a much smaller vig per ticket, since Powerball only has a drawing every couple days, and someone can sit and degen scratchoffs all day.

So anyway, using the same math that you're using to get the +60% ROI on this game, what is the ROI on the other games?

I'd also factor in a chance of:
-Lotto error, either in printing the tickets or in reporting these numbers online.
-Some kind of scam, where someone has access to the winners.

Although with the second bulletpoint, I would still expect winners to get cashed regularly by the scammer (and his beards).

The big prizes are all still there as of today, but Tuesday is always the big day, as anyone who won over the weekend couldn't claim the 500K prize until the office opened on Monday. Will re-examine the EV calcs tomorrow if nothing has been hit.

this is interesting. My friend lives in Michigan, I might look into this.

I just did the numbers very quickly: 30,690 tickets remaining with a prize pool of 1,559,810? Does someone want to check my math?

i live in st paul mn so it would only take me 4 hours to get to the UP. any volunteers out there willing to call around to lottery sellers (mostly gas stations?) starting around the area of ironwood, mi and moving east and then south? if enough locations are found to make it worthwhile i may consider making the trip or i'll hand the data off to someone else if i decide not to make the trip. i would be willing to freeroll 5% of net profits split as follows, 1% msufan, 1% locator of winning scratch off store, 3% split by # of tickets located by volunteers. contact me if you're interested in calling around to stores for an assigned area, i'll make a google spreadsheet if there's enough interest. any ideas for a better way to find locations?

You have no way to know if there are 30k or 300k tickets left out there

Correct me if I'm wrong on this. But basically the only way you are going to make money on this if you hit one of two 500k prizes. The EV of the ticket is all based on this. So really it is not worth going out and buying a significant amount of these because your chance is still 2 in (however many thousand) that you'll make any really money. As someone pointed out earlier the EV without the two top prizes is about $6 (and change). So I just really don't get the point of going out of your way to buy these.

yes, the money is in the top prizes but those are likely to still be out there so it's worth it if you can locate enough tickets to make up for travel/time expenses and you have the bankroll... by the way, someone want to calculate the recommended kelly bankroll given the assumed payouts?

hang on -- 30,690 WINNING tickets are left, and 1 in 2.74 wins, so ~84,090 tickets left.

You can make a very good estimate knowing that 1 in 2.74 was a winner when the game began; a 30K sample of winners will still be reasonably close to that ratio. You could argue that maybe there are only 75K tickets left (1 in 2.5 being winners) or as many as 90K (1 in 3) but you can be 99.9% sure the actual amount doesn't deviate much more than that.

As I illustrated earlier in the thread, and now with even better numbers, you're looking at something where you could spend $1000 for a 1/125 chance at half a million. Yes, you're still going to lose 99+% of the time, but that's a heck of a +EV play overall.

I hope you win!

I did this in post #5. rough estimate is a bankroll of a $1,000,000 to buy a $10 ticket. bankroll growth is pretty small with such a long shot. This thread is still pretty cool and could be a fun gamble.

The entire remaining tickets don't cost $1M. Even without hitting either of the big winners, you could buy out the remaining 84K tickets for $840,000 and you would win $560,000 in doing so. So $280,000 is the absolute MAX you would need even if you wanted to buy every remaining ticket. Remember that the odds improve with each non-jackpot-winning ticket you purchase; your calcs don't take that into consideration.

did you factor in all the smaller prizes? i'm guessing it's around the $200k range but could be way off.

ah right. I knew that couldnt be right.

so even we over-estimate to 85k tickets left, thats $850,000 worth of tickets and a little less than 1.6M in winnings. So roughly 750k of overlay, assuming no one has bought one of the big ones uet?

Right.