7-7-7-7 costs Pa. Lottery bigtime
By Peter Mucha Inquirer Staff Writer
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Talk about your lucky 7s.
Wednesday night, all 7s came up in Pennsylvania Lottery’s Big 4 drawing, resulting in a whopping $7.77 million payout to 3,107 winning tickets.
Even more oddly, the news comes on a day when the Super 7 jackpot is $7.3 million, and Cash 5’s top prize is $770,000.
The Big 4 payout was a staggering 1,573 percent of sales, according to lottery spokeswoman Kirstin Alvanitakis.
In other words: The lottery has to dish out about $7.2 million more than it took in for that drawing.
“We definitely lost money on the Big 4, that’s for sure,” Alvanitakis said. “But it’s great for our players. People love to play quadruple numbers.”
“It’s definitely not an April Fools joke,” she said.
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“We operate our numbers games with the expectation that when triples or quadruples hit we will lose money,” she said. “Drawing triples and quadruples is great for the large number of our players who enjoy playing these number combinations.”
Besides, there is a safeguard. “We have a sales cutoff of $10 million for Big 4 for any number combination – including quadruples – to ensure Lottery’s liability does not exceed its ability to pay winners,” she said.
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This agravates me on so many levels.
It’s the politicians “stealing” from the poor. Who plays these “games”? Poor people trying to catch a break.
And the economics are a joke. It’s a tax on stupidity. Which, thanks to the gooferment skrools, there’s a lot to go around.
Final note: Notice how they limit their losses. That’s unfair to the folks who get “locked out”.
It’s a losing proposition for EVERYONE!
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