NY Lottery has decreased the amount of rollover added to Lotto from $500k down to $300k. Now it takes longer to reach bigger jackpots, and the 2nd prize only increases by $30k. Someone did win 2nd prize of $520k, which was during the PB craze so noone was playing Lotto. Now Lotto is up to $11.9m, lump sum: $7.7m. The January promo is buy $5 get $2QPs/Sweet Million buy $5 get $3QPs, which is really good. But, the odds of winning $1m X 7.7 of SM is better than Lotto as you get %60 of free QPs. Ifcourse, if I do win $1m I'll be playing PB, MM without a care.
That does not surprise me that NY lottery is taking a bigger cut. I don't understand with all the revenue they generate at Empire city or Resorts World casinos, you'd think they were doing just fine on their revenues. I scratch NY lotto games everyday. $10 scratchy is 3.7 to 1 for a winning ticket. And to hit the Jackpot of 3 million (no it's not that kind of rich, like Power Ball 100M+) is 3.8M to 1 whereas PB or Lotto is 175M to 1. I'll stick to the instant games. Even at 10 tickets (lotto) to 1 instant, or $10 dollars, your odds are better with an instant. nylottery.org has the odds of every game, and the number of winning top prizes that's still in circulation for each game.
does anyone still play lotto? to me the payouts are so (relatively) small that its not worth it. even if you win 7million after taxes, living in NY its not exactly a life changing amount. (damn, did i just say $7million is a small amount?!?? ) anyway, if lady luck will pay me a visit, it better be for powerball or megamillions. as for scratchoff tickets...those have the WORST odds. i bought a few around xmas time and decided to look-up the odds online. for the $5 ticket that i bought the odds of winning the second prize ($5K) was 120,000:1. yikes!!!! odds of winning $5K in win4 is 10,000:1. thats the last time i play scratchoff tickets.
I like $7MM it's a perfect amount. Like you said in NYC it's not a huge change in living. I probably wouldn't do much differently except get an upgrade to a new condo.
Ifcourse with $5 you get 1:2000 odds on Win4 on straight; box is 1:1000. good odds, however, considering the double and triple numbers, it's no better than Pick10(Keno). As for scratch offs, major rip off. I like live draws such as Numbers, Win4, MM, etc. not printed cards with known amount of winners in each game. Despite the fact my uncle won a $10 'Win for Life' $5k/week.