Google Analytics Case Study NLCB Cashpot - R and Tableau
- kyledavis767
- Aug 6, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: May 9, 2023

Additionally please see the following links for the code used as well as the visualizations used.
The following is the GitHub Repo for this project.
The following link is to the Tableau visualizations.
Background
This analysis was conducted based on a conversation held between myself and my peers. We were discussing the large lump sums that are won in lotto. In this conversation, I indicated that if I had to choose to play between NLCB's LottoPlus and their CashPot game I would play CashPot based on the probability to win. It is from here my peers indicated that they never heard of anyone winning CashPot and rightfully so as these winnings are not glorified like their lottery counterparts. From here, I found a data set that contained information on the CashPot draws from 2000 to 2019. Using this data I have answered the following questions.
Does anyone win Cashpot ?
On average how much will be the cashpot winning ?
What is Cashpot ?
Cashpot is a lottery based game where the winning contestant must the five winning numbers. Each number can range from 1 to 20 and each number cannot be repeated.
For example if '2' is selected as the first number, it will not occur again as one of the winning numbers.
Once the winner(s) get the necessary number 60% of the total number collected for the draw would be distributed to the winner(s).

The picture above shows the playing card for the CashPot game.
Question 1: Does Anyone Win Cashpot ?
The answer is a resounding yes. By looking at the graph below we can see that on average over 1,000 people win CashPot every year. That being said one can see that in 2008 and 2009 there were 308 and 261 winners respectively. This difference in trend was explored as well and will be discussed later.

Graph 1: Shows the total amount of wins.
How much does someone win with CashPot ?
There were three approaches to answer this question. The first approach was looking at the average jackpot per year. The graph below (the first half) shows the average jackpots and also places a line which highlights the median jackpot throughout the years.This median is $128,601. However, the challenge of looking at the yearly average jackpot is that averages are easily influenced by outliers such as large jackpots or no jackpots at all. This is very important given that 2008 and 2009 both have low jackpot figures, this can influence the average for each year.
The Second approach was use the median jackpot for each year. From this approach shown in the second half of the graph, we can see differences in each year's median jackpot. The median jackpot for all years examined was $138,593. With both 2008 and 2009, the median jackpots are higher than their average jackpot figures. Which means that the averages were impacted by the outliers in those years.

Graph 2: Contains two graphs. The first graph shows the average jackpot per year. The second graph shows the median jackpot per year.
The third approach was to determine, on average how much each individual winner would have received for each year. The difference with this approach is that the first two approaches looked at the jackpot but did not account for how many people won the jackpot. With Cashpot, it is possible for more than one person to win the jackpot. The graph below shows the winner jackpot trend throughout the years.

Graph 3: Shows the average jackpot per year.
What occurred in 2008 and 2009 ?
From the graph below we can in both 2008 and 2009 they contained the most draws with no winners. This may seem evident however when you reference the average and median jackpots they begin to show a possible theory of what occurred.

As indicated in earlier the jackpot of CashPot is a percent of the total monies received. Therefore by looking at the jackpots received by the winners for these years one can assume that the number of persons playing CashPot decreased during this period.
Why this occurred is unsure and more data and research would be needed to answer that question.
So, does anyone win CashPot and should you play ?
Yes, people do win CashPot. If you are ok with the odds of winning and the jackpots associated with winning CashPot, this game will be a viable option when compared to LottoPlus.
Comments