How Win Pa Lottery Ticket Weight Is Calculated
Odds & Expected Value
At Win PA Lottery we constantly scan all known statistics for every Pennsylvania Lottery scratch-off ticket currently available for sale. This data is provided directly by the Pennsylvania Lottery via their websites as well as public bulletins submitted to Pennsylvania regulatory departments.
Win PA Lottery assigns each new game created by the Pennsylvania Lottery a starting purchase weight of 75 to 77 based on some initial criteria. As tickets are played throughout the state, and turned into the automated Pennsylvania Lottery prize system, we are made aware on a daily basis of which large prizes remain to be found.
Those remaining prizes are evaluated and by using the law of large numbers, noting the random distribution promise made by the Pennsylvania Lottery, as well as a custom blend of winning statistics the purchase weight begins to fluctuate. The purchase weight is a custom metric used to determine which game is most likely to sell a large prize next. It can also be used to deter a player from choosing a game that has oversold top prizes or has no top prizes left at all. A purchase weight of ~75 indicates prizes for this game are being won and claimed at a very normal rate. Anything above 78 indicates a larger presence of top prizes in the pool of tickets left to be played. A purchase weight of less than 73 indicates a ticket where top prizes were won too early and your expected return to player percentage has significantly decreased. Finally a purchase weight of 0 indicates no top prizes are left to be won at all and the game should be avoided completely.
Major Factors That Can Influence Ticket Weight
Top Prizes Being Won Immediately
The same way a prize can be won on the first ticket in a pack, a top prize can be won on the first pack that shows up for a new game in retail circulation. If a major amount of money is quickly removed from the prize pool, the expected value of the rest of the tickets plummet. This is why you may see a new game immediately show up as a bad buy on our Best PA Scratch-Off Tickets page.
Multiple Wins In Top Prize Tiers Remaining
Using the law of large numbers one can theorize a correlation between the ramining percentage of the smallest top prize tier and the largest top prize tier. Therefor a considerable amount of attention is paid to larger prize tiers that have one, or more than one, prize(s) that can be won before the percentages start to line back up. This will cause the purchase weight of the ticket to increase. This effect can snowball if multiple top prize tiers exceed the lowest top prize tier percentage.
Pictured below is a great example of a set of prize tiers that would significantly increase the purchase weight of a ticket. You can see that the lower tier jackpots have converged at around 70% remaining. This leaves two different prize tiers above that level that could sell one or many tickets and still remain above the 70% convergence zone. These include the top prize of $1,000,000 and the third prize tier of $1,000. Winning $1,000 would be incredibly beneficial to your quest for life changing money so you might as well play a game where both possibilities exist in greater than average quantity.
| Prize Value | Prizes Remaining |
|---|---|
| $1,000,000 |
5 / 5
(100.00%)
|
| $5,000 |
11 / 15
(73.33%)
|
| $1,000 |
646 / 900
(71.78%)
|
| $500 |
17,336 / 24,700
(70.19%)
|
| $200 |
3,816 / 5,500
(69.38%)
|
| $150 |
22,360 / 32,000
(69.88%)
|
| $100 |
69,875 / 100,000
(69.88%)
|
| $50 |
209,625 / 300,000
(69.88%)
|
| $30 |
209,625 / 300,000
(69.88%)
|
| $20 |
223,600 / 320,000
(69.88%)
|
Printed Odds Of Winning Each Ticket
Another notable Win PA Lottery custom statistic revolves around the printed odds of winning in a single play. (how do I find the printed odds?). We believe longevity of play greatly impacts the chance to obtain a top prize tier win. The more tickets you play the more exposure you have to the stated return to player. Therefor if you can win at least your money back 1:3 times during a jackpot hunt, you will be able to play more tickets on your set budget than you would by winning at a rate of 1:3.5 , 1:3.75 or 1:4 times etc.