Xzotto, the lottery pool that isn’t, have launched a new website (still badly explained) and a new feature – called ‘Floating 5′.

Glimmer Of Hope..?

To be fair this is the first glimmer of any sense from Xzotto. But I do just mean glimmer so don’t get excited yet folks. On the face of it you would be forgiven for thinking it’s a cool idea.

So What is Floating 5

Well the deal is you pay $30 to join, plus $25 per month – same as before. Plus $4 or $5 per month ticket costs as you have to buy tickets to be included in Floating 5.

Now if a Xzotto members ticket wins, they get to keep 50% of the prize (I know, but stay with me here…). Then 35% goes to the 7 people above them.

Finally three lots of 5% are randomly given to someone else. The 5% bits are Floating 5.

Somewhat Confusing, So Is That Good Then..?

Well, this now makes it a lottery within a lottery (still not a lottery pool!). So if someone else wins, now you play another lottery to see if you win any of their prize money.

So if (as I’m told) there are 3,000 members, that means if one of them wins, then you have a 3-in-3000 chance of getting 5% of their prize. Because there are 3 of those 5% bits and 3000 members who could be chosen. Which is the same as a 1-in-1000 chance.

Just a Bit More Mega Millions Maths…

Now normally the Mega Millions jackpot is odds of 1-in-175 million (so not a good game to choose anyway). And my calculator says that the chances of both a Xzotto Member hitting the jackpot AND you then getting a 5% share of it is therefore 1-in-60 Million.

Disappointed!

Which is actually the same increase in chances as buying 3 tickets yourself…

Except 3 tickets per draw would cost you half as much. And you’d get to keep all of the prize instead of just 5%…

[Now before some bright spark says "but as more members join the chances of one of them winning the lottery increases..." - maybe so, BUT the chances of you actually getting a 5% share get worse at the same time as there are more members it could go to! So overall it doesn't improve.]

Is Floating 5 the genius it claims to be? Does it revolutionise Xzotto and make it a superb lottery pool?

Answers on a postcard to:- Why Does Xzotto Still Suck, Xzotto, Cloud Cuckoo Land, USA.

I’ve had a couple of people ask me about Xzotto.

A friend recommended it to them, but they wanted to get an expert opinion before spending any money… so can you guess my opinion yet..? 

They say it’s a lottery pool. Well, actually they don’t say that, but their members tend to!

The site actually says:-

create a lottery pool that reaches across the street or around the world

Note the vital use of the word ‘create’…

Xzotto Misses The Point By Impressive Margins!

I think somewhere in the design stage sombebody lost the plot.

Here’s what I mean.

As a lottery player I want to win the lottery.

As an enlightened lottery player, I know those junk systems based on analysing past results are a waste of money.

So I’m really looking for a better chance of winning. Cool, that’s the idea of a lottery pool.

So what does Xzotto offer?

You join for free. You buy your lottery tickets through them at normal price. You don’t get any pooling of tickets. You only get to keep 50% of your winnings.

Huh?

Seriously. No increase to your chances of winning, and you lose half your winnings.

That is what you really get, I’ve checked with them!

But that’s not a lotto pool?

Yeah, I know!

It’s also WORSE than buying a ticket at your local store.

YEAH, I KNOW!

So What’s All This Monthly Subscription Stuff About Then?

In short – it’s one of those business opportunity things. You pay US$25 per month for the ‘Team Management Software’.

Yes, US$300 per year. Forever.

And yes, this sounds an awful lot like just the software needed to run the business opportunity itself…

You still don’t get any lottery tickets or pooling for that. But you do get US$5 a month for all the other people you get to subscribe to the software.

And if the people you introduce, and the people they introduce also buy tickets – note the ‘IF’ – then you get to keep some of their winnings.

But That Sucks Too, Doesn’t It!?

Pretty much.

Suck Reason 1
US$25 per month (forever) is a lot to pay for ANY software. Even Microsoft failed to sell subscriptions to it’s full blown Office software at only US$69 per YEAR. And if you really want software to manage a lottery pool, use a spreadsheet, free!

Suck Reason 2
It’s still not a lottery pool. You have to build your own pool by introducing other people. If you wanted to do that, why bother with Xzotto?

So Why Join?

Xzotto has generated a few thousand members. No, I don’t how either.

I suspect they have all been sucked in by the premise of ‘making a quick buck’, so the lottery side is totally irrelevant to them. They could be subscribing to a Zac Efron fan club for all they care.

But if any Xzotto players can explain why Suck Reasons 1 and 2 are wrong, please do comment below.

Seriously. Open debate. But please don’t just say “I hate you, you don’t understand” like a sullen teenager.

Do you think you get value for money? Is the software genuinely of value, and worth that much? Or is it just acceptable losses until you find enough other people you want to put in the same position… (house of cards style)!?

Myth

When picking lottery numbers you should NEVER pick the numbers that were drawn last week, because there is no chance they will be drawn this week…

Fact

Last weeks numbers still have EXACTLY the same chance of being drawn as every other combination! (Crazy huh)

Reason

I know it sounds logical at first. Who ever heard of the same numbers being picked twice in a row? Never happened right?

But the reality is it could happen.

Yeah, OK, so it could – but it’s still far less likely than other numbers, right..?

No!

It’s EXACTLY as likely as all the other numbers. Or to put it another way, it’s exactly as UNlikely as all the other possible results.

(Because all combinations are unlikely anyway. That’s the nature of a lottery, there are millions of combinations. So everything is unlikely.)

We Did WHAT Last Week..?!

You see there is no ‘memory effect’ here.

Those little balls have no brains, so they don’t know what happened last week. They just bounce around and pop out again without the slightest idea of what last weeks numbers were.

Don’t Believe The Hype

This myth is exactly the sort of thing those junk lottery systems use to take your money.

We’ll eliminate all those nasty unlikely combinations so you get a better chance of winning…

It’s a nice claim. But sadly it just isn’t true.

So when it comes to picking lottery numbers, excluding past results will NOT help your chances of winning. Right?

It’s a crazy $212 million jackpot draw tomorrow, but just what are your chances of winning the Mega Millions..?

Mega Millions is different to ‘normal’ lottery draws. It’s a ‘power ball’ type draw which means it’s really 2 draws – and you have to win both to get the jackpot.

That’s normally a very bad thing for the player!

But if you want to know just how bad, here’s how you work out your actual chances of winning that big jackpot…

For Mega Millions, you have 5 numbers from 56, so let’s work out how many different possible results there are. And you do that like this:-

56 x 55 x 54 x 53 x 52 divided by 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1
= 3,819,816 possible combinations

The Mega Number Is The Killer…

You also have the ‘Mega’ number which is a separate draw of 1 number from 46. That doesn’t seem so bad, but it actually means there are 46 more ways those 3 million+ possible results from above can happen.

And that does something really nasty to your chances. Because to get the final result you multiply the two like this:-

3,819,816 x 46 = 175,711,536

And that means you only have a 1 in 175 million chance of winning the jackpot..!

It’s Tempting But You Can Do Better

The big jackpot attracts a lot of players. But that jackpot is so big only because it is so damn hard to win.

That’s by design!

The lottery company sell more tickets when the prize is big. But they only get really big prizes when nobody wins, so the jackpot can roll over again and again. And that only happens if the odds of winning are really tough.

And that’s why you only have a 1 in 175 million chance of winning that huge prize.

A Better Chance Of Winning…

Look at the odds for the other lottery games your State runs. Pick a game with a ‘big enough’ prize but better odds.

You can instantly get 5 or 10 times the chance of winning for the same money.

If you state doesn’t offer a game with a better chance, then check out these guys who run a Florida lottery pool. Play with them instead and amazingly your chances of winning are instantly 77 times better than the Mega Millions..!

Have you ever used a company called ‘OSA Lotteries’?

(I think the OSA stands for ‘Overseas Subscribers Agents’ or something similar)

Because Elaine, a subscriber to my lottery tips newsletter, asked me if they are any good.

Now I know they sell lottery tickets online for lotteries all over the world, and apparently do a lot of postal mailings too.

I’ve personally never used them, but I’m very interested to hear your experiences – because when I looked today…

I Was SHOCKED At The Prices They Charge!

Now Elaine was asking about the massively popular El Gordo Christmas lottery. This is the one that all of Spain go absolutely nuts about – mainly because it has the most ridiculously big prize pool you will have ever seen. I mean, what other lottery in the world has a prize pot of 2.3 BILLION!

The draw date is coming up fast on 22nd December, and tickets supplies are strictly limited for this draw.

So I checked out what OSA Lotteries are charging. And as I said, I was truly shocked. These guys are charging SEVEN TIMES the normal ticket price for their El Gordo lottery groups. No, really! (And their groups are 100 in size – which is too big).

Don’t get me wrong – it’s absolutely fair and necessary to charge extra.

Because there is a lot of admin and other overheads involved in running a lottery group, sourcing the tickets from Spain, checking results, claiming and distributing winnings. Clearly all this costs money.

But then why is it ‘OSA Lotteries’ that the e-Lottery syndicate people can do it all for a lot less than half of what you are charging..?

My advice to Elaine, stuff OSA, grab a place with e-Lottery before they sell out. (That’s what I just did. And if you want a piece of crazy Spanish fun, you’ll do the same)

So what do you think of OSA Lotteries? Have you ever used them? What did they charge, and for how many tickets and what size group?