68 Match 5 Mega Millions winners but the 21 in California get low pari-mutuel payouts

What seems to be a record number of the 2nd place Mega Millions winners in the March 20, 2012 drawing illustrates two important lottery oddities.

First, we find that a total there was a total of 68 winners who matched the 5 white balls and won the second tier prize. The white ball numbers drawn were: 01 04 06 11 14. These are classified as "Birthday" numbers because they can all be made from the numbers of the month and the day of month.

In choosing numbers to play, many people use important dates as their numbers.  While we do not know if the majority of winners picked their own numbers, we suspect that they did. This would certainly account for the large amount of winners. However, if most of the winning tickets were generated as Quick Picks, we would have to question the random number generator being used. Most likely though, most of the winners  played their favorite numbers and not quick picks.

Looking at the increase in the annuity jackpot prize by $49 million, we can also estimate that there were approximately 98 to 100 million tickets were sold. Given that number, we would expect to have 25 to 26 match 5 winners. But, since we have 2.6 times that amount, the Birthday Number Theory provides a sound explanation.

The low prize payout to the 21 California winners highlights the second oddity which is because of pari-mutuel payouts in that State. Normally, a Mega Millions match 5 winner without the Megaplier Option would receive $250,000.  But, California pays out the Mega Millions prizes on a pari-mutuel basis (not a fixed prize level). This means that the payout fluctuates depending on the number of winners. The fewer the winners, the higher the prize; and, the more the winners, the lower the prize.

Because of this, the California winners will receive $56,382 each, almost 5 times less than the 47 winners in the other States.  

When multiplying the $56K times the 21 winners, it appears that California expected to see 4 to 5 winners in this tier that would have won $250,000. But because there were 21 winners, they all had to share the allocated prize amount equally which substantially reduced their earnings.

We can learn 2 things from these results:

• First, many people play their birthday numbers which are often duplicates,
• Second, try not to buy tickets in California if you live on a border state where the payouts are fixed.

Lastly, we wish to congratulate all of last night's Mega Millions winners on a job well done!

Its Our 4th Anniversary

Image by slinky789 via Flickr

During the month of September 2010, Lottery Power Picks will be celebrating it's Fourth Birthday.

This past anniversary year has quite rewarding for both us particularly since we have earned a profit. This is due to our having a wide range of loyal members and advertising partners who we appreciate immensely. We thank all who have purchased from our affialite partners and contributed to us through donations. And lastly, the website stability that our hosting company, Hostway, provided us was nearly 100% maintenance free uptime.

Since we launched the site, membership has grown to nearly 3,000, This year, significant numbers of players profitted from our recommendations.

• 47 recommended combinations won major prizes
• Many of these returned prizes of $100 or more
• Three Canadian 649 players won a total of nearly C$5,700
• And, one Irish Lotto received over €200
  

Regarding development of new products, we:

• Created new Pick 3 coverage for Texas, New Jersy, and North Carolina
• Added Even Odd Analysis pages for Powerball and Mega Millions
• Are currently in the process of completing the release of Lotto Texas and Two Step
• Added Even Odd Analysis pages for Powerball and Mega Millions
• Created RSS feeds of various headlines to help every access our information

Powerball, Lotto Max, and Thunderball format changes also kept us busy this year. In response to these, we revised our statistics, and published new blog entries.

Additionally, we devoted substantial time to our three blogs, writing new articles and giving opinions. We upgraded our templates, and trimmed blogging memberships.

We hope that everyone enjoyed being part of our community as much as we have enjoyed providing you this service, and love having you with us.

Thanks again,


JL .................

It's Our 3rd Anniversary

Today is a special day for us!

Lottery Power Picks is celebrating it's third year anniversary.

This past year has been a lot of fun and we have continued to grow. Some of the important highlights are:

• Membership has grown to over 2,500 individuals
• Over 60 recommended tickets won major prizes
• Players prize winnings were more than $15,500
• We had one $10,000 prize winner
• New analysis pages included: Where the Winners Come From, and Hot/Cold Analysis

We wish to thank all of our loyal players, visitors, affiliates, advertisers, and web hosting company Hostway for helping to make us successful.

In addition, we want to thank all of the new blogging friends we have made at Entrecard, Adgitize, CMFads, and Along for the Ride for your daily visits and comments.

We look forward to this new year and remain dedicated to maintaining our free service and helping everyone!

Cheers,
JL .................

It's Our 2nd Year Anniversary

Today, Monday September 1st 2008, Lottery Power Picks is celebrating it's second year anniversary. This past year has been a lot of fun for us and we hope that you enjoyed it as well. Here are some of our major highlights:

• Free membership has grown to over 1,500 individuals
• Over 26 recommended tickets won major prizes, returning $2,400 back to our players
  
• Coverage expanded from the US & Canada into Europe with the addition of UK Lotto, Thunderball, EuroMillions, & the Irish Lotto.
• In the US we added California Super 7 and Hot Lotto
• We also began our John Lottery's Bimonthly Lottery Articles blog a year ago, and it's been a great hit.

The source of our finds continues to be on screen advertising. Donations also increased this year, both in the number of donors and the amounts given. Thank-you very much. We are not yet profitable, paying out double our revenue to advertisers.

We wish to thank all of our loyal players, visitors, affiliates, advertisers, web hosting company Hostway, and the forums on LottaLottos for helping to make this year successful.

We had hoped to add more coverage last year, but we were unexpectedly attacked by hackers. From February 2008 until the end of July, we directed our efforts at providing continuous service to you and blocking out those pests. Between our hosting company and ourselves, we believe we have eliminated the problems.

We decided not to publish our 2008 Lottery Rankings this year for various reasons. But, we do plan to update it in October 2009.

We are looking forward to expanding our lottery coverage during the next year, and can't wait for one of you to win one of the large jackpots.

Thanks again, JL ...
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It's Our 1st Year Anniversary

On Saturday September 1st 2007, Lottery Power Picks will be celebrating it's first year anniversary. This past year has been a lot of fun for us and we hope that you enjoyed it as well.

We wish to thank all of our loyal players, visitors, affiliates, advertisers, web hosting company Hostway, and the forums on LottaLottos and NetWinners for helping to make this year successful.

We are looking forward to expanding our lottery coverage during the next year, and can't wait for one of you to win one of the large jackpots.

Thanks again, JL ...
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