Tonights odds of winning $120 million are 1 in 47 million.
 

I buy a lottery ticket about once a year
because the odds against hitting the jackpot
are 1 in 47 million. Tonight's Lotto Texas
jackpot is the highest ever, at $120 million.
I was thinking, if 10 of my friends each pitched in $10
to get 100 tickets they would have a one in in
470 thousand chance of getting a $12,000,000 share.
That's not too bad for $10. Yeah, that's not too bad at all.
let me know if you want me to pick 10 tickets for you.

Ray
ICQ 7208627

hey DUDE, an even COOLER idea, just buy 47 million tickets, and you'll have a 100% chance of winning! COOL!

whenever this happens, and they actually win, expect a long drawn out legal battle over what % of the ticket was yours.

I read something some time back when the CA lottery started
your odds of getting struck by lightining while sitting on the tolet are better then winning the lotto...

I don't know exactly what taxes you have in Texas but if you take the cash option, you're probably looking at $60,000,000 so you've got a 1:47,000,000 chance of winning $60,000,000 except that so many people will be buying tickets for this huge jackpot that you'll probably end up splitting it with other winners.

SpaceAce

Buying 100 tickets does NOT change your odds to 1 in 470,000. :1orglaugh

My office all pitched in quite a bit each. =)

you live in texas? i'm sorry...

of course it does

what is your reasoning?

He's looking at mathematics for that "special" child.

100 chances at 1 in 47 million is a different thing than 1 in 470,000

Maybe you need special school

if you win are drinks on you?

Actually no, they're the same thing.

Maybe you skipped basic algebra?

So I suppose if a sponsor converts at 1:470 and you send 470 hits, the chances of you getting a sale is still 1 in 470?

You still buying tickets? I'll add $10 to the pool

Jesus... your ODDS of winning hardly change.

You get a couple extra CHANCES of winning at the SAME shitty odds... but still someone has to win at some point.

Thats what Im saying.

Its not a raffle of a certian amount of tickes with one gaurenteed winner.


Apparently people dont understand that.

There's a finite number of combinations (47 million) with one combination being guaranteed to win. So if you bought 47 million tickets (all combinations possible), are you saying your chances of winning are still 1 in 47 million?

Not at all, you would in fact be gaurenteed to win. And with a jackpot of $121 million , it would be a good investment.

But are you saying buying 100 tickets would give you gaurenteed odds of 1 in 470,000 at the same jackpot?

Well if nothing else at least the thread got bumped for him.

I got a few tickets for the hell of it.

Yes, it's the same math. Just imagine you had to pick one number from 1 to 10. Your chances of winning are 1 in 10 but if you buy 5 tickets, you cover 5 of the possible 10 numbers so the odds drop to 1 in 2. Pretty basic stuff.

ODDs were made to keep a brotha down
If some other fucker can do it, then anyone can :thumbsup

Wrong.

If odds are 1 in 47 million per ticket,
with 100 different tickets you have 1 in 470,000 chance.

very easy to prove.
you buy a block of 100 tickets. there are 470,000 different 100 combination blocks, totaling 47 million combinations. Each block of 100 has 1 in 470,000 chance to hit.

now another thing to worry about,
it's very likely there will be more than one winner, since more people play when the prize gets big. even if you bought all possible combinations, it's very easy to lose money, especially factoring in the taxes.

ya when its over 100 million i play $1..

if you play your chances are 1: 135 million

if you dont your chances are 0: 135 million

Umm. Wouldn't this change the odds to 1 in 46,999,900?

:eek7 you're kidding right? did some of you drop out at the 6th grade or something?? :1orglaugh

Count me in Ray :) Nothing ventured nothing gained :1orglaugh

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.

This reminds me of an old man in texas who sold his house and emptied his bank account trying to win the lottery. he had the same sort of plan. He had enough money to make his odds 1:3 , the only problem was he ran every lotto store in town out of lottery printer paper. so he only ended up getting a few hundred thousand tickets printed...



And yes he lost

wow, nice story! :thumbsup

If you have some money burn, better buy 10k+ shares of some dirt cheap penny stock... (at 1 cent each for example, that's $100)

Your chances of cashing in on that are probably 10x greater than by buying lottery tickets....

"The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math"

Yeah.. if you pick some for me..

a) I don't know what the winning numbers are
b) If *my* ticket wins, you're gonna send me the money, right?
c) The odds are kinda crappy :)

correct. The lottery thrives on the fact that people think they can increase their chance to win by 10fold if they buy 10 tickets

:1orglaugh

agree

wtf? Probably 10 people in this thread said that buying 10 tickets doesn't increase your chances by 10... Is it late and you guys are just tired?

How can it not? Lets say we are playing guess a number from 1 to 100...

if you take 1 guess, your chances are 1 in 100...

if you take 100 guesses (assuming you are not a retard and guess each time differently)... than you are guaranteed to guess the right number 100% of the time...

if you guess 50 times, your chances are 50%...

Same with lottery, there are lets say 100 million combinations... if you "guess" 100 times, you chances become in 1 in million. And the fact that 10 other people may have chosen the same numbers are completely irrevelant -> it only effects how much you win, not your chances of wining...