Approaching the games we sell like a biologist, I found a simple classification scheme that shows how our games are related, and highlights some opportunities to do things differently! NASPL Insights June 2016
Category: Draw Games
event determines outcomes
Go ahead, call us “the Lotto”…
The Lotto game, developed in the middle of the 20th century, was a big improvement over earlier games, but needed the scale that only government monopolies could at that time provide. Now, state lotteries offer big and small versions of Lotto under a variety of names. When people call us “the Lotto”, they may be recognizing that this is our particular franchise -not a bad thing, I suggest. NASPL Insights April 2016
Outlook for the Big Games in 2015
NASPL Insights December 2014, I assessed the behavior of the Powerball and Mega Millions games in the eleven months since California joined the Powerball game. I found that while sales at jackpots below $100 million had remained fairly steady, the sales response to jackpots approaching $300 million was less than half what it had been during the “base period” between Feb 2012 (when Powerball raised its price to $2) and April 2013 (when California joined). I went on to project the probability distribution for jackpots greater than $300 million in the coming year. The difference between the games was stark: Powerball was more likely than not to have three or more such events, while Mega Millions was more likely than not to have no more than one.
Mega Millions: What is the New Normal?
Using math modeling techniques including thousand-year models, I forecast the changes in behavior of the Mega Millions game to be expected from structural changes that took effect in October 2013. This article appeared in NASPL Insights February 2014.