By Todd Northrop
DENVER, Co. — The Colorado Lottery conducted its final MatchPlay drawing Friday, capping a two-year run for the jackpot game.
The $2 game, which launched in February, 2010, was originally designed to be on the market for approximately 18-24 months. In a statement issued earlier this month, the Lottery is said to be reviewing different game options to offer players in the near future.
"We want to offer a product mix that is fresh and entertaining," said Abel Tapia, director of the Colorado Lottery. "Ending MatchPlay is preparing us to pave the way for an exciting new online jackpot game." [Editor: An "online" game in lottery-industry terminology refers to a game purchased using a lottery terminal at a retailer, not a game offered on the Internet.]
Since there were no winners of the jackpot in the final drawing, the jackpot pool was divided equally among all of the winners of the 5 out of 6 level, awarding winners of the 5 out of 6 level $15,500 each.
12 players won the MatchPlay 5 out of 6 prize Friday.
Farewell MatchPlay, parting is such sweet sorrow!
I have all your pictures on my mantle....sniff.....sniff.....boo hoo......
I need more Kleenex please....sniff....sniff....sniff.....sniff.....sniff
Ohio's experiment with the $2 ticket Lot'O Play jackpot game ended after only a year the same way. Its final game didn't have a jackpot winner either so the lower tier prizes shared it too.
Ohio replaced it with a $1 ticket Classic Lotto that same week. They said they had revised an old favorite, the 6/49 format but the real old favorite was the $1 ticket price. Maybe Colorado will do something similar.
Kentucky did it a different way when they ended their $2 3 Line Lotto. They printed out raffle tickets to everyone buying tickets the last 3 weeks of the game and 100 raffle ticket winners each split the $440,000 jackpot. That game was replaced by another $2 novelty game Five Card Cash.
Many states have this "RIP OFF" game, at least that's how I feel about Delaware's version. Delaware calls it "Multiwin". They have one of the tighter win setups.....you have to get 6 numbers right within the 3 lines to win $2. I see that PA lets you win with just 4 numbers right within the 3 lines. MD also has their version and I think they let you win something with 5 numbers right within the 3 lines. I have tried all kinds of ways to win something by picking my own numbers, but the randomnizer always seems to defeat me. I don't like a game that has a built in program when you purchase the tickets that usually guarantees you will not match any of the 6 numbers you pick on the first line. The jackpot in Delaware goes for up to a year at a time not being won because not a lot of people are playing the low prize jackpot games and the odds are very high for the amount of active players. I guess it makes for a slow but steady income for the lottery.
I'd like to see Colorado implement a Pick-3 game.
"We want to offer a product mix that is fresh and entertaining," said Abel Tapia, director of the Colorado Lottery.
ooOOoo I have a suggestion - paint all the lottery balls green... but only have those that are drawn be 'yellow' (use light-sensitive color-changing paint) - and then watch the conspiracy theorists crawl outa their dens with excitement...
or... create one game... but keep changing the name every week... see how long it takes everyone to catch on... then when they do... change the color paint on the lottery balls again...
That'd be fun, if Colorado still used balls.
No balls? What a bunch of sissies.
no balls... bummer...