Texas Lottery shuts down ‘All or Nothing’ game
Lottery games are by definition profitable for the organizers, as they dictate the amount that goes towards fueling the prize pool. Regular games can’t go bankrupt and with the odds being stacked against players, it is unfathomable that a lottery will need to close its gates due to profitability issues. This makes it very surprising that the Texas lottery shuts down, only a matter of months after it was launched and following a public reception that surpassed even the most optimistic forecasts.
Game design flaws put Texas lottery on hold
The roads less traveled are less traveled for a reason and whenever people try to reinvent the wheel for the sake of higher profits or in an attempt of coming up with a revolutionary product, they take certain chances. It looks like for the Texas lottery it was its All or Nothing principle that brought it to its knees, as players won larger amounts than estimated. Lottery officials were laconic in their statements and only said that it looks like players are focusing mostly on a small subset of number combinations.
In other words, despite the fact that Texas lottery players can choose between 2 million distinct mixtures, they tend to play a couple of them. One conclusion that could be drawn from this statement is that players won large amounts or many smaller ones, which rendered the lottery virtually unprofitable. The executive director on the other hand praises the lottery as an innovative concept and says that the game will be back in a not so distant future. Meanwhile, winners don’t have to worry about receiving their prizes as the lottery will honor all its commitments and those entitled to be awarded a prize will be granted the money.
Original payout structure
The rules of the game were easy to understand and players had several chances to win, which explains why Texas lottery was so popular from the very beginning. People are expected to select 12 numbers out of 24 and they can win regardless of how many numbers they match, except for the case in which they have five, six or seven numbers. This outcome is the most likely one, which explains why the size of the prizes increases when more or less numbers are matched on the lottery ticket.
The largest amount will be won by the one who matches all 12 numbers or none of them, and the top payout for the Texas lottery is a quarter of $1 million. With four draws held on a daily basis, it was only natural for the organizers to collect impressive amounts but it looks like they had to award just as many prizes. Overall the lottery is still profitable, but given the fact that they didn’t meet their profit margins the ones in charge contemplate a change of rules before restarting the games.
Check out Some interesting facts about Keno as well.
