The Arizona Lottery changed the odds on at least two of its online lottery games.The game that I have played most often, The Pick 5, has made it harder to win the jackpot. There were a total of 35 numbers to choose from as of April 19, 2008. On April 20, the total number became 39. They added only four more numbers, but the odds changed significantly. They added a new way to win: match 2 of the five numbers drawn and win $1. The overall odds of winning a prize improved from 1 in 72 to only 1 in 10. It sounds like a major improvement. If you want to spend a dollar to win a a dollar, this is the game for you. I have decided to no longer play Pick Five, which was once called Fantasy 5. The top prize in Pick 5 is at least $50,000, but it rolls over if there is no jackpot winner. The odds of winning the jackpot WERE one in 324,632. By adding four more numbers, the odds of winning the top prize are now one in 575, 757. Imagine looking at 3 black plastic cups, turned upside down. Underneath one of those cups is a white ball with the word jackpot written on it. All you have to do is pay $1.00 to guess which black cup has the jackpot ball and you will win $50,000 or MORE. The odds are one in three of guessing correctly. I would play that game ! Now imagine standing in the middle of a very large field. On that field you see thousands of black cups turned upside down. Not only thousands, but 575,757. You pay only $1 to guess which black cup has the the white jackpot ball. If you find it, then $50,000+ is all yours. That doesn't sound like a game I want to play. Now think about standing somewhere in the middle of Death Valley looking a millions of the black cups. Underneath one is the white jackpot ball. If you pick the right black cup that has the jackpot ball, you will win millions of dollars. Each guess will cost you only $1. How many black cups do you have to choose from? If you playing The Pick, another Arizona Lottery game, you will be choosing your black cup from a total of 7,059,052 cups. You can also pay $1 to choose from 146,107,962 black cups. If you guess the correct cup with the jackpot ball, you winn the Powerball jackpot. On January 4, 2009, the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot went from bad to worse. The odds of winning it are now one in 195,249,054. I recently cashed in two winning Powerball tickets. All of the tickets I checked cost me about $75.00. I was the happy winner of $7.00. If you are going to play the lottery in Arizona, or in the state where you live, you'll likely have a better chance of winning playing the scratch ticket games. The scratchers usually have better odds of winning compared to online games.
