Hey, the Multidraw is back on the Florida Lotto. *sigh* Yes, I play the lottery. No, I don’t expect to win. Yes, I’ve heard the "idiot tax" joke.
So anyway, recently I was informed that you couldn’t do Multidraw on Florida Lotto. Multidraw is where you buy tickets in advance for the same numbers you’re playing now. I liked it because I didn’t have to stop at the store twice a week. So with the news of this change, I was a little upset. So I tried to get to the store twice a week, but a lot of times I just didn’t want to take the time.
Today I had some time and stopped in. When I handed my ticket sheet (I play the same numbers all the time), the machine rejected it. The cashier said, "This is the old sheet. you need to use a new one." So I went to get a new sheet. Yes, it is a little different.
Old: 
New: 
New: 
The big change is the addition of bet amounts. I didn’t understand this and had to read the instructions. *sigh* Yes, I read the instructions. The $1 bet is the same as it used to be. The $2 bet gives you an extra $10 million with the jackpot, The $3 bet gives you an extra $25 million with the jackpot. This is interesting. I’m sure the lottery commission didn’t just think this up for fun. There’s probably some hard math behind it. But I’m not that great at math (obviously, right? I play the lottery). These are some of the thoughts I had.
Florida lottery players probably are aware that the jackpot rarely goes over $30 mil. Is it more appealing that you’re playing for a $55 mil jackpot, albeit at $3/play? Maybe that option will be played more often by the players that only play when the jackpot is over say, $15 mil. Conversely, since your odds are winning never change no matter how many people play, but your odds of splitting a jackpot are greater when the jackpot is higher (since more people play), is it a better strategy to play $3 on low jackpots and sit out on the higher jackpots?
Me, I’m just going to keep playing my usual. If luck ever happens to come along, I hope I’m young enough to enjoy the winnings.
In other lottery thoughts, I once entertained a conspiracy theory that once the lottery hits $30 mil, it is won. My theory was that there was one or multiple millionaires that would buy every number combination possible for a guaranteed jackpot win (plus all the 5 of 6, 4 of 6 and 3 of 6 wins). It makes decent business sense. The odds of winning the jackpot is about 1 in 23 million. That’s 7 million dollars profit, if you can afford the 23 million buy-in.
Unfortunately, it’s logistically near impossible. You would need to print 7.6 million numbers a day, or around 88 numbers a second. That’s 88 numbers a second, 24 hours a day for 3 days. That doesn’t take into account time to reload ticket paper (assuming you even have enough), time to read the ticket sheet and any other latencies. Even if you took the conspiracy to an extreme: there are 100 millionaires all in this together; they all own their own business that is a licensed lottery agent; they all shut down for three days to print tickets for three days straight; they all gather the tickets and find the winning ticket, they all… oh, come on, I can’t even continue this. They would net less than a million for all that effort. And if they split with a regular player, that cut their winnings in half.
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