MO Lottery Blog

Happy New Year!

May all your dreams come true in 2008!  Good luck and best wishes! 

The countdown is on!

We're counting down the last days of 2007, but bigger still is the countdown for the Million-Dollar Raffle.  The game has a limited number of tickets for sale, and even if all the tickets are not sold, time will run out on Jan. 21. Ticket sales end Jan. 19. The clock is ticking for you to get your best chance to win $1,000,000!  Don't let 2008 start with regrets - get your MDR ticket today!  Good luck.

Enter early and often!

There's just one drawing left in the "Holiday in the Driveway" second-chance promotion.  Gather those non-winning holiday Scratchers tickets, or qualifying $10 Scratchers and enter by Jan. 8, 2008, to be eligible to win a Chevrolet® Avalanche truck.  Players can also win $1,000 worth of gas or $500 in cash.  Don't let those holiday "leftovers" go to waste!  Enter the "Holiday in the Driveway" promotion today! 

Happy Holidays!

Need a last minute gift idea?  There's always Scratchers tickets from the Missouri Lottery, or how about one of those Million-Dollar Raffle tickets?  It offers your best odds to win $1 million!  They might even share if they win!  With thousands of retailers across the state, there's a good chance you can find something in their size almost any time.  Good luck, and Happy Holidays from the Missouri Lottery. 

Disclosure

A statistics class at San Antonio College recently finished a project on state Lotteries.  They compiled information from each individual state's Web site and ranked them using a point system based on disclosure and fairness.  They believe California is the most open and fair, and ranked Missouri ninth.  I'm still "grading" their final, but it looks like they did their homework.  You can check out the project here. 

What do you think?

I've heard a few people suggest that winning their money back on a Scratchers ticket doesn't excite them.  I'm assuming they think that money should go toward larger prizes.  What do you think?  Is a free ticket a worthwhile prize? 

Don't miss your best chance

In case you somehow missed the countdown on the Molottery.com homepage, nearly half of the tickets for the Million-Dollar Raffle have been sold.  The sales for this game are limited - when the original allotment is gone, the game will be closed and the winners selected.  Because only 250,000 tickets will be sold, this is your best chance to win $1 million! 

It's important to remember that buying multiple tickets doesn't mean your are improving your odds significantly.  Each ticket has the same odds of being selected as the grand-prize winner.  But, only a player holding a raffle ticket can win.  Don't let the clock run out before you have your name on one of those chances.  Good luck! 

That makes 9

We've seen a virtual flood of triples in Pick 3 this year.  The evening numbers on Dec. 13 were 3-3-3.  I'm sure that makes some of you very happy - our accountants, not so much.  We paid out 340 percent of sales in prizes.

I think I'm going to have a talk with those Pick 3 balls.   

Need some lucky numbers?

A question from Carolyn sparked my interest - "Tell me what you think are some good numbers to play?"  Of course, we don't endorse any combination as "lucky," and we wouldn't tell you to play a certain combination due to integrity and liability issues.  However, while searching for information on her favorite combination, I realized there are a lot of tools on Molottery.com that help you decide on your favorite combination.

First, there's the "Check My Tickets" feature that allows you to put in different combinations of numbers and check the history back to 1998 for how many times those numbers have been selected.  There's the "Number Frequencies" feature that details the percentage of time any given number in the game has been drawn.  And then there's the "Numbers Wizard" feature that randomly selects a combination of numbers and reveals how "lucky" they have been. 

So, without endorsing any given method for selecting a combination of numbers (every drawing is a random event), we do offer you some tools to find the combination that works for you.  Whether or not you play is your decision.  Good luck.

We hear you

We've been getting a lot of feedback, and we thank you.  We want you to know that we're listening, and are working on some issues to improve your Web experience at Molottery.com.  Please understand that we did test the new site and based all changes on suggestions from players.  However, we know there are some things we can improve and we're working hard on the solutions. 

Some of you have been worried that we're not returning your messages.  We won't respond to all comments on the blog by e-mail; if you leave a comment that needs an answer, we'll try to respond on the blog, or we may follow up via e-mail if we need more information.  Not all comments need an answer, and not all comments will necessarily get posted.  That's not because we're limiting your free speech.  The standing rule is that comments have to relate to the post they're submitted under for them to be published - unrelated issues only confuse visitors and are probably better handled via direct communication.  If it's important information for everyone, we'll share it in a post like this one. 

We do respond to all e-mails that we receive through the blog and Molottery.com (Contact Us).  We'll usually respond in one business day, and at the most 3 business days, so if you have sent us a note and haven't heard back for a while, contact us again.  It's possible that your spam blocker or virus protection is stopping our replies from reaching you.  You might have to add us to your "friends" list to keep that from happening. 

We've heard from a few of you that you have to keep signing in to My Lottery.  You can reach all of the "members only" functions by clicking on the My Lottery icon in the main banner.  The first thing you'll see is the sign in feature at the top of the page.  Once you log in, you can use all of those functions, although the sign in icon remains.  If you navigate away from the secure section of our site, you will have to sign in again.  That's one of the issues we're working on. 

We've had several requests from people looking for functions like the Numbers Wizard.  We moved all of the numbers Games functions to the individual game's page.  We thought that made more sense and would keep all of the related items together - one of those improvements in navigation.  The links for past numbers, Number Frequencies, etc. are all embedded in the banner containing the game logo.  For instance, hover over "Games" and click on Lotto.  You'll see the banner there along with all the different functions for Lotto numbers, followed by a small arrow.  Click on "Check My Tickets" or the arrow following it to travel to that page. 

We also understand that some of you are having difficulty getting the winning numbers.  We condensed the winning numbers on the home page so we could fit all the information on a single page, meaning the data just fills the screen and limits the need for scrolling.  You can also click on the "Winning Numbers" icon in the top banner to get a list of the most recent drawings.  We are working to make that more readable, as well as a printer-friendly version.  It's currently set up to display a month at a time, but we realize some of your like to look at the history in more detail.  We may be able to create a downloadable file with all of the numbers history. 

So, as you can see, we hear what you're saying and we're always working to improve your experience at Molottery.com.  Several of you alerted us to problems we didn't know about, and we thank you.  Please continue to stick with us and give us suggestions, or ask questions about what you're seeing.  But please be gentle - even us Lotto balls can get bent out of shape.