A lot of people are complaining that it is unfair when one person 'floods' the pot and almost guarantees themselves a win - I am not here to ask that to change, I do understand that you buy each chance to win, and even when you flood it you still have a chance at losing.

My suggestion is this; Make more prizes for the lottery. Change it so that there are three prizes per draw. 60% of the pot for 1st person drawn, 25% for second person, and 15% for the third person (I am not saying specifically these numbers, just as an example). Also, only one prize is winnable by each person, so if someone wins the second place prize they are removed for the chance of the third place prize.

This would still allow the 'flooding' of the pot for someone to win the big prize - however, it also means that other people have a decent shot at winning at least what they put in if not more. I can't see any drawbacks to changing this, and the positives would be that people don't feel hard done by when the same person wins the pot over and over.

Thoughts?

I'd actually play it if this was implemented!

If you are the guy who floods the pots, the downside is you won't get everything you could have. Another might be that one savvy gent who faithfully plays 1 dollar a week. Under this new mechanic, he would only win 60% of what he could have.

Not saying i don't agree with your plan. Just pointing out the drawbacks!

Cheers!

But with his one dollar he would have three chances at winning a prize!

The point of the three-prize system is that people CANT flood the pot, if they do flood too much they'll lose money.

For instance;

Pot is at 30 million.

Flooder puts in 33 million, minus the 10% gives him 30 million tickets.

Pot is now 60 million, Flooder wins the top prize which is 60% of 60 mill, which is 36 Million. The 1st place winner still profits, and still has the majority chance of winning the pot.

2nd place is someone who put in 5 million, they win 15 million. 25% of the pot goes to this guy. Profit of 10 million.

3rd place is the guy who put in 1 dollar. He wins 15% of the pot, which is 9 million. Profit of 8,999,999.

As you can see, flooding the pot no longer gives you a huge advantage and in fact it makes more sense to not flood the pot as the most you can flood it with still making profit would give you just over a 50% chance at winning, which is a rather large gamble.

its fine how it is

Of course you would say that Heroin.. you've won how many times by flooding the pot?

I agree that the lottery needs to be altered. I have no desire to even try anymore knowing that I might as well have no chance in winning. Might as well just start sending money to the people who do flood the pot.

LOVE!! this idea, the flooding of the pot is the exact reason I don't even bother putting my $1 a week in anymore

I love this idea also! Honestly I hope it is taken into consideration. As it stands the higher ups of our world feel the lotto is "fair" as it stands, but more and more people feel that it is not. Now that was not an open invitation for someone to spew the mathematics on how it is all equal on some 3rd dimension and how in the "long" run, it will even out... when you have a ton of people not partaking because they don't feel it is worth it. Then maybe it is time to answer to teh masses. We need more people to stand up and let them know they do not like the system that is in place!!

I support this change. 

Just to add to what Marston was suggesting - One may also suggest a city based lottery? Everyone then would buy tickets to their own city drawing and each city would draw one winner a week. This allows more people to win and should increase the odds tremendously. Kick it around a bit. May involve some code but is more realistic as well.

City based lottery isn't that realistic. You don't have to live in Massachusetts to buy Mass Lotto, or Georgia to purchase Georgia State Lotto. Powerball and Mega Millions are played nation wide as well.

City based, i do not think would do well. Great idea though. Keep thinking outside the box :)

How about more realistic for the nineteen thirty's's and forty's.

I support this!

I might actually start investing in the lottery once again if this happened.

I support this idea 100%

The lottery is a waste. It is worthless except for those who save up millions to flood into it. There should be a better way to do it, not that I'm saying what you said is definitely the right choice. I do like it, but there are many possibilities.

There should be a change to it so that everybody gets a chance to win some money from it and not just one person who puts in 10 million at the last second.

Bumping up this thread so it will get noticed. I like the idea. It makes alot more sense, and as DS said, itll stop people being able to flood it so much and open it up to more players. Maybe then we could see even bigger draws than what we have now.

I support this idea too.

"The point of the three-prize system is that people CANT flood the pot, if they do flood too much they'll lose money."

This is the case with the current system as well. All this suggestion does is find a way to lower the threshold where it's patently obvious that playing the lottery is a money-loser (in that no matter what you'll get back less than you paid) from 90% to 60%.

If it makes people stop complaining, I support it. It keeps the spirit of the lotto without changing the estimated payout for the small-time buyer. Though I enjoy the possibility of epic lols when watching someone who thinks they bought the pot losing tens of millions of dollars too. In that sense, all we really need to do is let the odds play out until the house wins.

Perhaps set a limit to how many tickets one can buy, therefore making it fairer for all.

My greatgrandad won the lottery and he never played more than 100k

I'v never heard of flooding.  What happens if two people flood?

I support this idea.