Would you buy that “Million dollar” lottery ticket if you knew that someone had already claimed the million bucks? No? Well, if you buy lottery tickets in Virginia you may have been doing just that, according to a new lawsuit.
Scott Hoover, a business professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, was “shocked” to learn that the $5 scratch-off ticket he bought had no chance of being a big winner. The top prize of $75,000 had already been awarded before he even bought the ticket. Now CNN says he’s suing Virginia for breach of contract.
“It’s one thing to say it’s a long shot to win the $75,000, but it’s another thing to say you have no shot to win it,” John Fishwick, Hoover’s attorney, told CNN.
Through a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act, Fishwick’s firm was able to obtain records that showed the Virginia State Lottery sold $85 million in tickets for which no top prize was available. Fishwick says the state should pay $85 million in damages.
USAToday says that about half of the 42 states that sell scratch-off tickets continue to sell them after the top prizes have been claimed. Lottery officials say it’s fair because there are still lesser prizes that have not been claimed, and because people can use the internet to check if top prizes have been claimed.
‘Zero’ chance lottery tickets stun some players [CNN]
(Photo: blue_j )
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If anyone has ever done “pull tabs” — they’re like scratch tickets but you get them from a machine at the bar (or restaurant) and open them on the spot. Prizes are usually small, from $1.00 to $500.00. There are a known number of winners for each prize, and as they are won, the bartender marks off that prize on a sheet posted above the machine. You know just how “hot” a particular machine is, can see all the remaining tabs, etc.
All they are asking for is the same level of information when buying a scratch ticket. Seems reasonable to me.
@bobbleheadr: A friend of mine mixed some of these in with regular tickets for the stocking stuffers. I almost ruined the gag when I said “Where did you get these? There’s no state seal on them.” before her sister-in-law “won” $25,000 and ran around the house screaming her head off. Good Timesâ„¢.
I just wanted to let everyone know that this is my first post and I really love the consumerist. Initially, I had my words ready to totally agree with the article because I used to buy alot of lottery tickets and felt somewhat misled. However, after reading everyones post, I can now say that I disagree with the claim. I also think I am just scared of the commentors. You guys come up with the best comments!
So before I had no chance of winning, and now I REALLY have no chane winning? WTF???!! I’m spending my dollar on BINGO instead!
I’m going to sue my lottery commission because the winning ticket was sent to Houston instead of my local convenience store. This gave me no chance to win the big prize (since I don’t travel to Houston), and therefore is false advertising on their part.
I can see the complaint, but that’s kind of the reality of the game. It’s not intentionally deceptive, it’s just unfair for everyone to stand a chance to win by nature. About the only way to avoid it is to go the Ohio route WiglyWorm first mentioned, but you lose the “instant gratification” of winning the top prize simply by scratching the ticket.
If you want deceptive, look to slot machines. They are programmed so that the odds of winning are based on how much net revenue it has made. So you have virtually no chance of winning if the machine has been generous recently.
Seems like the fair way would just be a continuously running game where the scratch off tickets are randomly generated just like a slot machine. There could be multiple large winners in a row, but the possibility that a large winner would always exist. You’d lose the guaranteed schedule of prizes though and have to settle for a guaranteed payout rate.
So if the orginal complainant isn’t satisfied with a simple notification that the grand prize has already been won for a particular prize (already available on web sites and likely if he asks the vendor), he is essentially asking for is a refund if he doesn’t win the lottery.
That’s ass-hatness to a high degree. Just because someone bought the winning ticket on the first day or last day the cards are available has no bearing whatsoever on his chances of winning. He just wants a heads-up that he won’t win. That’s not the point of a game of chance. Hell, I wish my mutual funds had that kind of insider information.
@Triborough: I’m quietly floored that someone who plays Lotto is calling the ticket-players stoopid.
Isn’t all of this like arguing whether it stings more being hit by lightning when standing in a puddle or on dry land? Either way, the odds are too astronomical to factor into one’s daily life…
If the ticket is still marketed at the point of sale as having a chance at the big prize when it does not, it is clearly not what you think you’re buying.
Buisness professor buys scratch-off lottery ticket? Huh? I guess we all have our vices, or he did it explicitly to be able to sue.
@MercuryPDX:
“If the “average chance of winning a prize” is 1:5, this does not mean that there’s an automatic winner within every five consecutive tickets”
Makes sense to me. The odds of flipping a heads on a coin is (virtually) 50%. However, flip the coin twice in a row and there is no guarantee you will get a heads and then a tails (or a tails and then a head). All they are saying is that in any 5 consecutive cards there may or may not be a prize, which means that in any 5 consecutive cards there may be more than 1 prize by definition.
I used to work at a customer service counter dispensing these tickets and I learned a few things:
- All Florida tickets say something like “All prizes, including the top prize are subject to availability at time of ticket purchase.” They also list the odds of winning per ticket, last time I checked it was 1:3. Everything is pretty transparent in this respect.
- There are lots of people who treat playing the scratch offs like a night at the casino. They drop ~$100 keep playing with any winnings they get, sometimes for hours. They don’t need to win the top prize to be happy, just come out a little ahead (or just not lose everything).
My local news station did a story on this a few weeks back, and everyone they interviewed was aware that someone may have already won the top and were perfectly fine with it as long as some prizes were still available.
The $5 tickets fall off in sales rapidly in WA once the top prize has been won.
Thing is there’s usually some decent smaller prizes, and let’s face it, i know i’m tossing $5 when i play such a game. Winning $25 is like finding $25. If i can’t afford the 5 bucks, top prize or none, i’m not playing. You can’t win if you don’t play, but it hedges against losing by not playing too!
Scratch-off tickets have long been viewed by many as a tax on people who are bad at math. This apparently continues for people who are very concerned about scratch-off tickets, as well. Each ticket-game consists of a few elements: T, the number of tickets, C, the cost of a ticket, P, the total dollar amount of prizes available, and S, money for the state. The general formula for these games is, (T*C)-P=S, the number of tickets times the price of a ticket minus the prizes is how much money the state gets. Two examples:
The current system: Super Win $50 tickets
In this game, there are 150 $1 tickets available, the grand prize is $50 and there are 25 $2 prizes. Let’s plug that into my formula:
(150*$1)-($50+$50)=$150-$100=$50
Total ticket sales are $150, total prizes are $100, so the state gets $50.
The stop-when-the-big-prize-is-gone system: Stupid Win $50 tickets. In this game, tickets will stop being sold after someone wins the $50 prize. Otherwise the game is the same as above. If the last ticket sold is the $50 winner, then the math is the same as above, but if the first ticket is the $50 winner, then suddenly the state has taken in one dollar, but put out $50, for a loss of $49 dollars. In this game, if the winning ticket is any of the first 50 tickets sold then the state loses money, and that is not even counting the $2 winning tickets. Generally, it would be impossible to run scratch off tickets this way, as state lottery commissions are not in the business of gambling when it comes to allowing others to.
@Jaysyn: Amen. Though if they do not have a waiver on the ticket specifically pointing out that you may win available prizes there is a point…there is also a point in filing a law suit against the makers of the Never Ending Story…
Texas retailers are supposed to print out and display a daily “Scratch-Off Prizes Claimed” flyer or do it on demand.
Texas also pulls games when all the top prizes are won but I’m not sure on their definition or cut-off for “top prizes”.
This hasn’t stopped my local Albertsons from having nothing but month old expired scratch-offs in its lottery ticket vending machine. Perhaps in Scott Hoover’s case it was the retailer not following through on procedures.
If lotteries did stop games after THE top prize (not all top prizes) was won then lottery corporations would have to respond with worse odds & lower prize amounts on future games.
@Tiber: What you say about slot machines “self adjusting” is simply not true (in America, at least, but probably elsewhere). It IS true that they are ‘weighted’ to pay out a particular percentage but that percentage is static. It is illegal (and the law is strictly enforced) to adjust this percentage ‘on the fly.’
These percentages are periodically evaluated by those who run the games and changes can be made with permission from a regulatory body. This is not a trivial process. Many gaming commissions also make the percentage information publicly available. There are also plenty of other resources where a player can obtain this information.
I’m not saying that playing the slots are a good idea. They’re the worst odds out of just about anything in a casino. With that being the case, slots don’t have to cheat. Even if a slot machine pays out 93% of the time (common payout for Vegas slots), the house is still taking 7 cents for every dollar you stick in the machine. Obviously this adds up. There is nothing deceptive about this.
A great deal of info can be found here.
~j
I agree with the Lottery=Tax on Stupidity line earlier.
So what if the top prize is gone? As long as there are other prizes available, I see no problem, just someone looking to start a pointless class action lawsuit after they gambled too much away and lost their house.
I saw this on the news about a week ago. There are still smaller prizes available. Sure, you can’t win the $1,000,000, but the chance to win $1000 isn’t bad either. Maybe they should be sold at a discount price if some people are so disgruntled about it
When I was younger I used to work in a service station and the majority of “scratch off” tickets’ buyers were seniors and low-income people. They must have had some kind of expectation in order to buy these. Let’s have them check the internet to see if the high prizes have been awarded.
Ohh yeah, Most senior citizens don’t know their way around a computer and low-income individuals don’t even have one…
@no.no.notorious: Now thats an idea!!!
@ThomFabian: Oh I know. I’m just amazed that people think that “If I buy 5 tickets, there’s one winner in there….”, 10 tickets = Two winners etc…
So much so that they needed to explain the odds.
@algormortis: A friend of mine tried to convince me to try the new WA State Raffle. He bought 5 tickets for $100 saying how great the odds were….
…so great that they weren’t in his favor and all 5 tix were losers.
Voluntary Tax on the “less informed” indeed.
@j4yx0r: Ok, slight mistake. My reference was
“> How It’s Made around 4:30 (My last experience embedding youtube went horribly, so let’s see if this works).
According to this, it says “it’s pre-programmed to pay out a certain amount at random intervals over a period of time, but, less money of course, than the machine takes in overall.”
That sounds to me like much the same thing as what’s happening here with the scratch tickets.
Yup, it hates me. Just go here:
If this doesn’t work, just search on youtube for “How it’s made slot machine”
I can tell you what will happen here..
The states are going to make it so that ALL large cash winnings are made via drawing AFTER the last ticket of that type is sold…
I bet $ on that.
I could care less about this scratch off business. I hate the nutsacks that buy 3 scratch-offs and then STAND THERE AT THE FREAKING COUNTER! scratching the damn things off, then expecting the cashier to immediately pay out. Excuse me, but people are waiting to get raped for gas.
I also find it odd that Texas has a lottery, but you can’t legally play Texas Hold’em ANYWHERE in the state.
@MrEvil: “I could care less”
Really? I couldn’t…
@dottat1: Thanks for the correction and reference. I can see how what they’re saying could be misconstrued.
~j
@j4yx0r: Ooops. That was actually @Tiber
~j