Happy New Year KW Lotttery Pool!

Many people didn't get at opportunity to tender their dues - or we didn't know if the jackpot was going to be reset again. Even so, we do have a nice surplus in our winnings pot of $105 - so I'll use that to fund those regular participants for this coming Wednesday's (January 2nd) drawing. You'll see a notation as such in the "Notes" column in the "Pool Financials" link to the right. Please plan to repay that $2 or $5 amount when we got back from the break.

We had a good year in 2007 - winning a total of $562. Our largest single night win was $68 - which we accomplished about a month ago. We fared a little better our first year as a pool in 2006 - winning a total of $748. Our biggest win to date occurred that year with a $331, one number away from winning $200,000 win on October 18th.

If we won more in 2006 than 2007, some might be wondering why I keep changing the spreadsheet and don't go back to the "old" ways of picking numbers because it appeared more lucrative. Though I don't have the exact records to prove it because the 2006 records are not complete I think if we remember that we participated in more drawings at first - every Wednesday and Saturday - plus the fact that we also participated in every drawing regardless of the jackpot level - that could account for the difference in winnings as well. More drawings - more chances to win. Of course that also equates to more coming out of your pocket for drawings. Everybody was required to ante up $5 too - we didn't have a $2 participation level - and we had more initial participants too. We average about 25 to 30 people now. Back then when the pool first started we had up to 50 - sometimes a little more. I think these factors could account for the difference in winnings and not so much whether or not the methods of picking numbers were better.

Something else to remember about our 2007 "season." We also had an unbelievable run of eight straight winning participation weeks in a row - something else that tells me we are heading in the right direction with how the spreadsheet picks numbers.

I'm comfortable with our performance and overall results for 2007 and hope you are too. As always, I'm open to your feedback about the pool. I'm looking forward to our best year in 2008 - crossing my fingers, doing the lucky dance (sorry....no public demonstrations of that), and crunching the numbers to hopefully bring us some big wins for this year. We're an interesting mix of people and I think we'd have some great stories to tell if we hit it big!

Thanks again for your outstanding support of the Kendall-Whittier Lottery Pool the past year two years! Without it the pool simply wouldn't exist!

Sincerely,
John