Photo: Florida Lottery
Q&A Of The Day – Your Best Odds Of Winning A Million Dollars In The Florida Lottery
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email:brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: Earlier this week a conversation with none other than the lovely and talented Nathalie Rodriguez raised an interesting question after two Miami area residents won $1 million dollar payouts with $30 dollar Florida Lottery scratchers. What scratch-off tickets present the best odds for winning a million dollars? Is it really $30 dollar scratchers?
Bottom Line: The Florida Lottery now has scratchers available to play at numerous price points. The current games include tickets which cost $1, $2, $3, $5, $10, $20 & yes, the ultra-expensive $30 scratchers. But hey, nothing ventured nothing gained, right? Now, in context of winning $1,000,000...there’s literally a $30 scratcher called...Fastest Road To $1,000,000. But is it? That is the question. The odds of winning a million bucks through the Fastest Road tickets are...drum roll...1 in 270,717. Without context but for a $30 bet I’m not sure how that may sound. Btw, like all Florida Lottery scratchers there are many other dollars amounts which can be won in increments less than a million. Starting with 1 in 6 tickets giving you’re your $30 back. For the purpose of this exercise, I’m going to only pick out the best odds at winning a million dollars with within each priced scratcher for comparison’s sake.
When vetting the best odds for a cool mil’ for each level of scratcher we can start with the process of elimination. No $1 scratchers can get you anywhere close to a million. Ditto the $2 dollar and $3 tickets. The first level of tickets which can potentially payout a million, checks in with the $5 scratchers. While there are multiples which offer up to a million – the best odds for a million come with the $5 Gold Rush Supreme. The odds... 1 in 2,423,288. As for the $10 tickets, it’s the Cash Club ticket with odds at 1 in 2,012,982 and at the pricy $20 level the best odds rest with $5,000,000 Luck tickets with odds at 1 in 1,115,670. Now in fairness, both the $10 and $20 tickets offer max payouts above a million – however the question was about the best odds for winning a million. This exercise has provided a clear answer. The $30 scratcher is as advertised. It is indeed easily the “fastest” road to a million in the Florida lottery. Its odds are literally 4.1 times better than the next closest ticket which is the $20-dollar scratcher. But what about the potential for perceived value/odds?
While one’s odds never become better at winning a prize, meaning even if you bought 270,717 $30 Fastest Road tickets there’s no certainty you’d win, there’s still the perceived odds/value proposition consideration. So, what are the “most efficient odds” of winning a million? It’s not the $5 scratcher. Even if you bought six of those tickets, to equal thirty dollars, your odds efficiency still significantly trails the $30 dollar ticket at (403,881). The twenty-dollar scratcher... That’s actually the worst efficiency when trying to win a million (780,969). So how about that $10 ticket? That’s better than the $20 ticket but worse than both the $5 and the $20 scratcher (670,994). So indeed, if you want to win a million through the Florida lottery...anyway one chooses to analyze it, the $30 Fastest Road to $1,000,000, is indeed the “fastest”, or most efficient way statistically to do it.