All Eyes on Lottery Drawings Tonight & Tomorrow

Lottery jackpots across North America and Europe are at record levels and it is no wonder that everyone on both continents will be eagerly searching for the drawing results during the next two days.

Tonight, the Friday drawings to watch are the:

• Highest is Mega Millions, which increased its jackpot from $304 to $312 million. This ranks in 6th place on its highest MM jackpot scale. The drawing is tonight and we expect this jackpot to be increased once again before the drawing is held.
• Second highest offering is tonight's Euro Millions cash prize of €133 million which is the 3rd highest in its history. This level was achieved through natural growth as opposed to a bonus offering.
• Canada's Lotto Max jackpot is C$43. While not a record, it is a worthy prize for those players.

Tomorrow night's drawings are somewhat lower in scale, but we know that these are very enticing as well. Saturday night lottery results that will be followed are:

• Powerball, who leads the pack with a $125 million jackpot.
• Irish Lotto offering €14 million which is tied for 5th place in its history, and
• California's Super Lotto Plus jackpot of $17 million.

This is a great way to end the last weekend of March.

By the way, do you think the Supermoon had anything to do with the growth of these jackpots?

Super Lotto Plus Draws 5 of 6 Hot Balls on Saturday Night

In the Saturday, March 5 2011, California Super Lotto Plus drawing, five of the 6 balls drawn were classified as Hot Balls. That evening, the winning numbers were:

15 21 22 33 45 and Megaball 15

Except for the number 22, all others were hot balls.

• The hot numbered white ball set for that evening was:  06, 07, 08, 09, 13, 15, 21, 33, 41, and 45. (10 in total)
• And, the hot numbered Mega ball set was: 09, 10, 15, 17 and 21. (5 in total).

Had players, or office pools, purchased all combinations of those hot balls, they would have spent $1,260. Their winnings would have been approximately $12,000, giving them a profit of well over $10,000.

To see these results, you may visit our pages:

• Super Lotto Plus Hot Cold Number Analysis
• Super Lotto Plus Full Wheel Payouts

Note that during time, the hot numbers change. Therefore, these numbers may or may not continue to appear as hot in our Analysis page on future dates. Additionally, the calculations used in our Wheel Payout page are estimated values only. This is because all payouts by California are determined on a parimutuel basis.

Thunderball, Super Lotto Plus & Texas 2 Step Full Wheel Calculators Now Available

For the second phase of our Full Wheel Payout Calculator releases, we have posted three new pages for your reference. These are the:

• California Super Lotto Plus Full Wheel Calculator
• Texas Two Step Full Wheel Calculator
• UK Thunderball Full Wheel Calculator

Each of these three games, along with our previously issued Mega Millions, Powerball, and Hot Lotto calculators, provide you the ability to compare winning payouts both with and without the corresponding bonus ball.

Besides accessing these tools from the above links, you can find these calculators from the Lottery Research Page.

The next phase of our release will focus on the 6 white ball lottery games: Texas Lotto, Canada Lotto 649, Irish Lotto, and the UK Lotto.

Enjoy!

Super Lotto Plus Players Should Take Cash

In this Wednesday's California Super Lotto Plus drawing, the Annuity Jackpot is guaranteed to be $8.0 million, and the estimated cash value is $6.6M.

These values imply that the Cash to Annuity Yield is only 1.60%.

With this low rate of reinvested return, any player who is lucky enough to win the Jackpot on Wednesday should take Cash. Pay your taxes and reinvest the rest in US Treasuries, and you'll receive more than $8.0M over time.

JL........

California Lottery Realigns Cash Value Offering to Fair Market Levels

Last Friday we questioned the Saturday night California Super Lotto Plus cash value offering of $4.2M because the implied Cash to Annuity Yield was an extremely high 6.075%.

No one won the jackpot that evening, and the California Lottery increased Wednesday's Annuity to $9.0M with an estimated Cash Value or $5.4M.

While the cash value was increased a whopping $1.2M from Saturday to this coming Wednesday, this value realigns the differential between Cash and Annuity to a more rational 4.63% implied yield. Based on current interest rate levels, we believe that these offerings are more realistic and fair to the players.

Since the California Lottery realigned the cash value offering so quickly, we believe that Saturday's minimal increase was purely an honest mistake, and not an attempt to withhold monies from the players.

We applaud California's quick action in adjusting the jackpot levels.

Note, however, that we continue to believe that anyone who wins the Super Lotto Plus Lottery of $9.0 million should seriously consider opting for the Annuity payout, since it would be difficult to achieve a guaranteed 4.63% tax deferred annual return on the $5.4M cash offered. But, that's our personal choice.


JL........

lottery
lotto
Stumble It!

Is California Digging into Lottery Coffers?

Since nobody won Super Lotto Plus on Wednesday, the advertised annuity jackpot for Saturday 06/27 was increased to $8.0 million from $7.0 million.

However, after a bit of delay, the estimated Cash Payment posted on Thursday was $4.2 million, up only $0.1 million from the previous drawing.

Based on an $8.0M jackpot with a $4.2M cash value, we calculate that the implied yield of Saturday's drawing is 6.075%.

By comparison, the previous drawing's yield was 4.878% while the yield of the 10-year Treasury Note on Thursday was less than 3.60%.

Had the yield remained constant from Wednesday to Saturday, we estimate that the cash value for Saturday should be $4.7 million.

The difference between our estimated cash value of $4.7M and California's stated $4.2M is $500,000 dollars, or 1/2 of a million dollars! That's a lot of money.

Realizing that:

1. The State of California is strapped for cash, and that
2. Most lottery winners automatically opt for the cash value,

we wonder if:

This is simply an honest mistake?

or

Is California trying to add another
half a million dollars
into its revenue by
taking it away from unsuspecting Lottery Winners?

We'd love to know what you think.

JL........

lottery
lotto
Stumble It!

Super Lotto Plus Draws Crazy Combo Last Wednesday

We always enjoy looking at the various combinations that were drawn in each Lottery. We thought that the Wednesday May 6 2009

Super Lotto Plus

combo was noteworthy of highlighting as a Crazy Combo. The 5 white ball combination was:

23 - 24 - 26 - 28 - 29
(with Megaball 11)

Why is this Crazy?

1. Note that all 5 numbers fell within the decade range of 20-29. With that constraint, there are only 252 possible combinations. Out of 1,533,939 possible sets, this is particularly rare.
2. The delta (diff between numbers) is symmetrical: 1 - 2 - 2 - 1
3. The Range was only 6 (difference between high and low number).

Unfortunately, this is the type of combo that would only be generated by a quick pick random number or one playing birthday dates. For someone playing straight combinations, this sequence would not be generated.

Just thought you'd be interested in another piece of

Crazy Combo Lottery Trivia.

JL ........