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Because of the possibility of duplicate tickets,
in your own 100 or splitting a winning combination
with someone else, the odds aren't exactly 1:470,000,
but they are pretty damn close. The algorithm to
compute the exact odds has puzzled many a
mathematician and statistician whom I have posed
the problem to. One time me and a guy with a
degree in probablity and statistics met to ponder
that question for about an hour a day for a week.
Then it hit me - you simply have to compute the
odds that ALL of your tickets will lose, then take
the reciprocal. So the actual odds are:
1 - ( (46,99999 / 47,000,00) * (46,99999 / 47,000,00) * (46,99999 / 47,000,00) * (46,99999 / 47,000,00) * (46,99999 / 47,000,00) ... )
with 100 repetitions, AKA:
1 - ( (46,99999 / 47,000,00) exp100)
Note that other relevant factors include the several thousand
dollar prize for getting 5 of the 6 numbers and the smaller
prizes, the taxes (about 50%), and the fact that the $120,000,000
is actually an annuity that pays $120mil over 30 years, which
reduces it's value by another 50%.
Yes, I'm a poker player. The reason I've bought lottery tickets
on maybe 5 occcasions in my whole life is because these
are not good odds. Hell, though, with the jackpot at $120mil
the odds of winning "12 million" in a pool are exciting enough
to drop 10 bucks on.
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