Mega Millions $550M- RIDICULOUS

Friday night (12/13/2013) there was no grand prize winner in the "Mega Millions" game. This is ludicrous!

Here's the top four payouts
     0 PA winners, jackpot rolls to $550,000,000.00
     0 PA players matched 5 of 5, each receiving $1,000,000.00
     17 PA players matched 4 of 5 and the Mega Ball, each receiving $5,000.00
     154 PA players matched 4 of 5, each receiving $500.00

I'm so against the changes that were made back on October 22nd, 2013 because for one, nobody has won the top prize since. Not in any of the states. According to the lottery currently the odds are 1 in 259 million of hitting the top prize compared to 1 in 175 million previously. 'Mega Millions' made changes because the jackpots rarely exceeded $200 million, except for back in March of 2012 when it was $656 million. Oh gee, too bad.

I get it. It's good for business when people line up only when the pots go through the roof. What I don't get is why people who might never play otherwise will when the amounts become incredibly large along with their odds of winning the jackpot diminishing as well?

Do they not understand the odds of winning the big prize become worse each passing week? Here's why. About 60% of the money spent on each lottery ticket goes into the prize pool. This means there was a number approaching a billion tickets sold. None which hit the jackpot since the switch.

Take a look again at the payouts in Pennsylvania above. No one won the second prize of a million dollars in this game here in Pennsylvania. Nor any other drawing here in Pennsylvania since the change. In fact the last time anyone won 2nd prize in Pennsylvania was on October 18th, 2013 when the second prize was still $250,000. The time before that was on September 27, 2013 when two people won $250,000 each. Think about it this way. Out 23 drawings only three tickets won a total of $750,000 in Pennsylvania.

THIS GAME SUCKS!
In Pennsylvania not one single person won a million dollars in all of 2013 (at the time of this posting) in the Mega Million drawings. In fact the last time anyone won a million dollar$ was back in 2012 by three people in March, June and December of that year.

Scrolling through the winners gallery at megamillions.com I couldn't find a single big winner from Pennsylvania. NOT ONE!

Instead of one winner getting over a half a billion dollars, why couldn't 27 people win $20 million apiece? Sure not all of them would be from Pennsylvania, but this state would stand a better chance of having a winner then we do now. This would net them after taxes with a cash payout about $8 million+. Who needs more then that anyway?

It's obvious Pennsylvania players aren't winning the big prizes. Screw the mega millions. Pennsylvania should start a new game for Pennsylvania players. Up until now players in Pennsylvania have spent tons of money on tickets that went to other states where their winners spent it instead.

Right now Pennsylvania has only one drawing game of it's own worth a million dollars+... the Match 6 Lotto. It sucks too! Only 3 people won a million+ in 2013 (at the time of this posting) and four in all of 2012. But at least all those winners were from Pennsylvania and most likely spent most (if not all of it) here in this state.

Here's another surprising fact. The Pennsylvania Lottery returns about 60% of the take for prizes. Pennsylvania casinos are required a payout 85% (minimum) on what their slot machines take in over all. In other words some slot games will payout far less. Others more. But at the end of the day, all of them combined have to meet that percentage. Isn't it kind of surprising that the 'house' returns more money from the slots at casinos to players then do Pennsylvania's lotteries?

Yes Pennsylvania uses lottery proceeds to benefit older Pennsylvanians, but purely from a players prospective there's less chances of winning. In the end, isn't this why most of us buy lottery tickets? Hold the phone.. I AM A SENIOR CITIZEN.. where's my "benefits"! hmmmm?

If you think the slots suck...
Since I started keeping track I've spent $655 and won only $56 in the Mega Millions. That's means 'the house' only paid out $1 for every $12 I put in or in other words 8.549%. Whereas I could have possibly earned (at best) a $556.75 (85%) return on the slots and enjoyed it a lot more. Now that's just plain wrong.

Since I play $2 a week perhaps I need to rethink how I want to throw my money away every twenty weeks or so. Last time I went to a casino I spent $40 on the $5 slots in less then five minutes and won $5. That was a 12.5% return. On our cruise I dropped $20 into the slots one night and walked away a half hour later with $4 (a 20% return). Both those still beat the returns on my mega million drawings!

Seems like I could throw my money away a lot more efficiently rather then waiting around for five months to get the same results, eh? :-)