I'm Moving to Illinois (Or Michigan)

"Why are all the Big Game winners from ________?"  (Insert Illinois and/or Michigan in the space provided)

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that one.  There seems to be a certain percentage of Big Game players (small, but consistent) that grumbles about the number of Big Game winners from Illinois and/or Michigan.

Not that I'm not sympathetic to their compaints -- those two states definitely have a good deal of winners.  But before I jump on the conspiracy bandwagon, I tend to look at things logically.

And that's where the answer is.  If Illinois and Michigan have a greater percentage of winners, I think it's due to several factors, which I'll discuss below.

It's All in the Numbers

It's not in the numbers that are drawn, it's in the number of players.  Did you know that Illinois and Michigan have the largest populations out of the seven Big Game states?  Statistically, a larger population means more potential players, which leads to a higher odds of winning.  Here's the 1999 population numbers for the seven Big Game states, ranked by population:

Rank	State	Pop.
1.	Illinois	12,128,370
2.	Michigan	9,863,775
3.	New Jersey	8,143,412
4.	Georgia	7,788,240
5.	Virginia	6,872,912
6.	Massachusetts	6,175,169
7.	Maryland	5,171,634
Total		56,143,512

According to the chart above, if all other factors are equal, then Illinois should get about 21.5% of the winners and Michigan should get about 17.5% of the winners, for a total of about 39% percent of the Big Game winners.  That means that about 2 out of every 5 players should come from either Illinois or Michigan.  By contrast, Maryland should only pull in about 9% of the winners (1 in 10).

Case closed?  Not yet.  I think there's another factor at play here.

Energizing the Player Base

We've got to remember why lotteries exist in the first place.  Lotteries are allowed to exist because they make a lot of money for state programs.  The more people play, the more money they make.  That's why state lotteries advertise and promote their games so much.

But some state lotteries are better at marketing than others.  In my opinion, Michigan does a very effective job at marketing their lotteries and energizing their player base.  To start, they produce all of the normal lottery promotional materials.  On top of that, they have a good Internet presence: they write and publish a little story about almost every top-tier winner, they have a solid web site, and they send press releases to the online services.

And then there's the billboard I saw in Michigan.  I happened to be in the Detroit area a couple of weeks ago, and driving on Route 94 East towards the airport I saw a billboard for The Big Game that had to be five times the size of normal billboard.  Now, I've been to each of the other six Big Game states, and I've seen Big Game billboards in those other states, but I mean that thing was BIG.

The effectiveness of a state's marketing is very difficult to measure, but it certainly does have an effect on player turnout, which in turn will affect the odds of that state producing a big winner.

The Good News

If you don't live in Illinois or Michigan, there is still some very good news for you.  You have exactly the same chance of winning the Big Game jackpot that every other player has, no matter where they live.

Every drawing is monitored by a large, independent auditor.  Before each drawing, the lottery machines are tested to make sure that every number has an equal chance of being drawn.  To accuse the lottery of rigging The Big Game so that a particular state will produce a winner is not only absurd, but would be practically impossible.

So if you want to be a lottery millionaire, you don't pack your bags and move -- take comfort in knowing that just because many winners come from Illinois or Michigan, you have exactly the same chances of winning as they do.


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