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As far as gambling money away and going for the long shots, I'd pick Las Vegas instead of the lottery. At least one can get some real time entertainment and "free" drinks along the way and side diversions galore.
I don't think that's necessarily true either, ie money not thrown away on "A" has to be thrown away on "B". Why not choice "C" and "throw it away" in an investment that has high odds of earning a decent return over the long run like a "boring" growth and income mutual fund? Though I guess one persons throwaway is another persons pleasure. To each their own I suppose.
For myself, I think the lottery is an utter waste of money and brings me no pleasure because I know how beyond terrible the odds are for me to win. I'd much rather take that money and invest it and let compounding do its magic over the years. But that's me.
If you spend $120 year on lottery tix ($10/month) the 30 year compounded interest on that money at 10% interest is only about $2000. Hardly enough to worry about over 30 years.
I think you're one of the few people here that gets the distinction.
The odds of the combination being drawn are 1 in 292 million, regardless of whether I bought one ticket, a million tickets with different numbers, or a million tickets with the same number.
So you really think the people saying you are wrong believe that if you have 2 tickets the odds that each ticket is the right one increase?
What you are trying to describe would be the equivalent to buying a losing ticket and then making sure you buy a different ticket for the next drawing. The combinations drawn are replaced so the odds of 1 combination will never change, regardless if it's never been drawn, was drawn last week, or was drawn 5x in the last year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lenniel
If you spend $120 year on lottery tix ($10/month) the 30 year compounded interest on that money at 10% interest is only about $2000. Hardly enough to worry about over 30 years.
What? If you spend $10/month for 30 years and assume it could be compounded at 10% it's not 2k, its 22k. Hell if you just spend 120/yr for 30 years that's 3.6k which is > than 2k.
Last edited by mizzourah2006; 01-08-2016 at 07:13 AM..
I'm a programmer by trade, so I'm used to the non-deterministic (probabilistic) properties of random values. It's something that tends to trip up less experienced programmers, since it doesn't seem intuitive.
Or to look at my scenario a different way, let's use real numbers. Last I checked, the powerball odds are 1 in 292.2 million.
Your first ticket: odds of winning on that ticket are 1 in 292.2 million.
Your second ticket (same sequence of numbers): odds of winning on that ticket are 1 in 292.2 million.
Your third ticket (different sequence of numbers): odds of winning on that ticket are still 1 in 292.2 million.
Your 900 millionth ticket: odds of winning are still 1 in 292.2 million.
Too long didn't read version: Your model is deterministic. Mine is probabilistic. The lottery is probabilistic, since it is not guaranteed that there will be a lottery winner drawn.
Your previous message used a coin toss example.
That's an example where it will always be 50/50 because the outcome of a previous toss doesn't influence the current (or future) one.
With a lottery, once a ball drops, that ball cannot be used again in that same drawing. There can't be two "5" balls, for example. The number of permutations is finite.
If the odds of winning the jackpot on a ticket are 292 million, if you buy 292 million tickets with all of the possible combination of numbers covered you WILL win. Guaranteed.
The problem of course there is that it is possible that someone else will pick a winning ticket and your payout will decrease.
Use a simpler scenario as a proof -
2 balls, each with numbers from zero to 9.
The first ball drawn has 10 possibilities. The second ball has 9 (as one ball is already drawn). What is your odds of winning? 1:45. Why?
You can't have duplicates, and the order is not important for our example. Therefore the formula is
n! / ((n - r)! r!)
n in this case is 10, r is 2 (2 chosen).
If the number drawn was 01, you would have a 1:45 chance of winning. If you buy 45 tickets with different numbers you will win. I do agree that any particular number combination for this example has a 1:45 chance of coming up.
Don't believe me? Run a quick algorithm.
Powerball is a bit different as for the non-Powerball number n is 69 and r is 5, and then for the red power ball n is 26 and r is 1.
Last edited by markjames68; 01-08-2016 at 08:09 AM..
I think you're one of the few people here that gets the distinction.
The odds of the combination being drawn are 1 in 292 million, regardless of whether I bought one ticket, a million tickets with different numbers, or a million tickets with the same number.
Of course, if that's what you meant previously then that is obvious. The odds of a coin toss are always 50:50, and the odds of any specific combination of balls coming up will be 1 in 292 million.
You are of course correct that if you buy 292 million tickets that match all of the combinations the odds of a specific number coming up is 1:292 million, but the person will still have a winning ticket.
From another thread on the same subject presents a pretty good visual:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ocnjgirl
During one of the huge jackpot periods for Powerball, a guy on the Today show said to imagine placing a line of pennies from LA to Chicago, with only one having an "x" on the back...and your odds of winning were the same as stopping randomly along those thousands of miles of pennies, and picking one penny and turning it over. You can also see by this example how buying 20 tickets doesn't increase your odds really at all...20 pennies among millions and millions.
All this back and forth about the math involved, most of which is wrong. It's not about the math!! Did you buy a Playboy just to read the articles? No. You bought it to indulge yourself in a little fantasy and perhaps a little, uh, self pleasure. Do you buy a ticket thinking you're really going to win? No, you bought it to indulge in a little fantasy, mental masturbation as it were.
And your odds of winning the lottery are about the same as scoring with the Playboy centerfold, but we can still dream. And someone will win at both, just not me or you.
If you flip a coin once, your odds are 50/50 heads/tails.
If you flip a coin twice, your odds are still exactly the same: 50/50.
You could flip the coin an infinite number of times, and it'll always be 50/50. Same with the lottery.
And here's a different way to look at it: if you flip a coin twice, that's not a guarantee you'll get tails. For simplicity's sake, let's say the odds of winning this lottery are 1 in 1,000,000. If you bought 1,000,000 tickets, that's not a guarantee that you'd win either. Somebody else that bought only one ticket could still win, since the probability is the same for everyone.
The odds of winning the lottery are about the same as flipping a coin 28 times and getting heads each and every time.... or tails - depending on your choice...
It'll be my luck I'll win, and then get struck by lightening...
Of course, if that's what you meant previously then that is obvious. The odds of a coin toss are always 50:50, and the odds of any specific combination of balls coming up will be 1 in 292 million.
You are of course correct that if you buy 292 million tickets that match all of the combinations the odds of a specific number coming up is 1:292 million, but the person will still have a winning ticket.
Yep, agreed. I guess it ruffles my feathers a bit when people misinterpret what I meant, and say I'm 100% wrong. I think we're all (mostly) on the same page now.
Jackpot has been increased to $800 million with a cash value of $496 million. This thing's going over half a billion in cash! Yeah Baby!
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You can also see by this example how buying 20 tickets doesn't increase your odds really at all...20 pennies among millions and millions.
