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Lottery Facts and Figures

May 23, 2008 - Super 7 bonus draw
The $27 million jackpot on May 23 was won (1 winning ticket) and turned out to be the last Super 7 bonus draw in this series. The planned $30 million bonus draw on May 30 was cancelled. Three of the five bonus draws were won. Ticket sales for the 5 bonus draws contributed $26.3 million to the jackpots. The 5 jackpots totaled $101 million leaving a shortfall of $74.7 million. The shortfall is funded using the Bonus Pool maintained by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation on behalf of the 5 Canadian lottery regions. The Bonus Pool is funded using monies from unclaimed prizes and 3% of all Super 7 and Lotto 649 sales.

Ticket sales were better for this series of bonus draws than the Super 7 bonus draws held in December of 2007. For example, sales for the $27 million jackpot were $36.3 million compared to $30.6 million for the same jackpot level in December 2007. But the big difference was the number of jackpots won. Last December, only 1 bonus jackpot was won, the last one in the series at a jackpot level of $30 million, and the total jackpot shortfall was only $9.4 million compared to the $74.7 million this time.

The other significant difference was the number of bonus jackpots planned for this series was 6 compared to only 4 in December of last year. Every year anywhere from 1 to 4 bonus draw campaigns are held for Super 7 and Lotto 649. This is the first time I have seen this many draws planned for a single series. This may be a new policy where more draws are planned but the lottery regions only proceed with the total number if enough of the jackpots roll.

May 16, 2008 - Super 7 bonus draw
The $25 million jackpot on May 16 was the fourth of six Super 7 bonus draws. The jackpot was not won and sales contributed $5.65 million to next week's jackpot. The payback was 73%.

May 9, 2008 - Super 7 bonus draw
The $22 million jackpot on May 9 was the third of six Super 7 bonus draws. The jackpot was won - one winning ticket. Sales contributed $5.2 million to the jackpot. The $22 million jackpot was funded with $16.8 million from the bonus fund. Even though the jackpot increased by 10%, sales increased only by 3%, at 14.75 million tickets, from the previous week. The payback was 69%.

May 2, 2008 - Super 7 bonus draw
The $20 million jackpot on May 2 was the second of six Super 7 bonus draws. The jackpot was won - two winning tickets. Sales contributed $5.1 million to the jackpot along with $3.9 million from the previous week. The $20 million jackpot was funded with $11 million from the bonus fund. The payback was 66%.

April 25, 2008 - Super 7 bonus draw
The $17 million jackpot on April 25 was the first of six Super 7 bonus draws. The jackpot was not won and sales contributed $3.9 million to next week's jackpot. The payback was 63%.

April 16, 2008 - Lotto 649
A new record was set for the April 16 Lotto 649 draw. The match 5 numbers prize category had only 67 winning tickets. That is the lowest number of winners for that category since the launch of the game. The previous record was 70 winners and was set in the April 26, 2006 draw. Two factors contributed to the new low. Sales for the draw were low at 6.45 million tickets. But the more important factor was the high winning numbers. The match 5 numbers prize was $3,350.60 - much higher than the average of $2,046.

March 21, 2008 - Super 7
For four draws in a row, the Super 7 jackpot was won. A total of 6 winning tickets in four consecutive draws - a $12 million jackpot followed by three $2.5 million jackpots were won. That is an unusual streak of wins given the odds are 1 in 21 million for a single ticket and the relatively low sales for the 4 draws. Total sales for the 4 draws was only 24 million tickets. Four consecutive jackpots at the starting level of $2.5 million culminated in sales of only 5.065 million tickets for the March 21 draw. That is the lowest sales for a single draw since March 8, 2002 - over 4 years ago.

March 19, 2008 - Lotto 649
The March 19 Lotto 649 draw had some interesting winning numbers:
23   40   41   42   44   45   B43.
Six consecutive numbers when the bonus number is included.
This is further proof never to play a pattern of numbers. The 5 + bonus payout was only $1,193 compared to the average payout of $148,657. There were 239 winners in the 5 + bonus category compared to the average of 4 winners. It appears most if not all of the winners of the 5 + bonus category played the 6 consecutive numbers starting with 40. Also interesting to note is the match 5 prize category paid out $2,223 - almost double the amount of the 5 + bonus category. There were only 106 winners in the match 5 category.

All of the Lotto 649 numbers played by Mario's Lottery Groups have been checked using a computer program looking for patterns. All tickets with any type of pattern were eliminated from the list. The strategy is working since all of our match 4 and match 5 wins to date have yielded prizes larger than average for that prize category.

March 15, 2008 - Powerball
The Powerball jackpot reached $276.3 million for the March 15 draw after 16 consecutive rolls. The jackpot was won by a West Virginia group with 8 members. Using the cash value of $139.4 million as a comparison, this jackpot was the 19th largest jackpot ever and the 7th largest Powerball jackpot.

March 7, 2008 - Super 7
Another example where low numbers produce low payouts. The winning numbers for the Super 7 draw on March 7 were: 1   7   9   10   11   27   44   B25.
The match 5 prize was $79.20. Compare that to the average match 5 prize of $100. The match 6 prize was $1,416. The average match 6 prize is $1,800. But the comparatively lowest payout was for the jackpot. Three tickets matched all 7 numbers and the jackpot was only $833,334. This is the lowest jackpot prize awarded for Super 7 since the game was launched in 1995. The average jackpot size since the game was launched is over $7 million.