Lottery is a bit crap
Discussion
loafer123 said:
Perhaps it is easier to try this from a different angle;
If you buy one ticket, you have one chance of winning and 45,057,473 chances of not winning.
If you buy two tickets, you have two chances of winning and 45,057,472 chances of not winning.
If I have to roll a 6 with a dice (or is that die) to win a prize, and have a 5 in 6 chance of not winning. On average I will win once every 6 rolls.If you buy one ticket, you have one chance of winning and 45,057,473 chances of not winning.
If you buy two tickets, you have two chances of winning and 45,057,472 chances of not winning.
If I have to roll a 5 or a 6 to win a prize, I have a 4 in 6 chance of not winning. But on average, I will win once every 3 rolls. By doubling my chances of winning, I have halved my odds.
Bookies chances and odds are slightly different, because you are not dealing with fixed maths, but more of a feeling. A non league team might be 1000/1 to win the FA Cup, but that's just a feeling. No one knows if on average it happens once every 1000 years, or every 500 years, or never. Same as horse racing.
But when talking about chance of winning and odds in something with fixed maths, like roulette, the roll of dice, the lotto, marbles in a pool, then the 2 are the same. Double your chances, halve your odds.
But if the odds are very very remote, then doubling them makes little difference in reality. If you do the lotto once a week you might win on average once every 500K years (or whatever the maths dictate). By doing 2 lines, you reduce that to once every 250K years. Either way, you are highly unlikely to win.
Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Wednesday 30th December 09:30
Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Wednesday 30th December 09:35
loafer123 said:
Perhaps it is easier to try this from a different angle;
If you buy one ticket, you have one chance of winning and 45,057,473 chances of not winning.
Yes, on average you will win once every 45,057,473 draws.If you buy one ticket, you have one chance of winning and 45,057,473 chances of not winning.
loafer123 said:
If you buy two tickets, you have two chances of winning and 45,057,472 chances of not winning.
Yes, on average you will win once every 22,528,736.5 draws. You have doubled your chance of winning, and halved the odds.KingNothing said:
Just worked out using the utterly fool proof "double the chance, half the odds" system posted above, that if I buy £256 worth of tickets for tonight, my odds drop from 1 in 43million odds of winning to an amazing 1 in 335,938 
Wrong I'm afraid. You are being overly optimistic.£256 is 128 tickets. Based on odds of 1 in 45,057,473, 128 tickets reduces that to 1 in 352,011.5
KingNothing said:
Just worked out using the utterly fool proof "double the chance, half the odds" system posted above, that if I buy £256 worth of tickets for tonight, my odds drop from 1 in 43million odds of winning to an amazing 1 in 335,938
my god has no one else noticed this? What if you buy a few more tickets? No wonder large betting syndicates like PH Lottery syndicate clean up every few months. Invest a couple of grand and you're sure to cut the odds to massively in your favour... not....
ASK1974 said:
"If you're getting a ticket for the Saturday draw, be sure to buy it on the Friday or the Saturday. That's because if you buy it on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday you are actually more likely to have died by Saturday evening than you are to win the jackpot"
That's spot on.Also, pick numbers over 31. You are no more likely or unlikely to win, but as loads of people pick birthdays, lucky numbers and house numbers, you are far less likely to share your winning jackpot if you go for the higher numbers.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
loafer123 said:
Perhaps it is easier to try this from a different angle;
If you buy one ticket, you have one chance of winning and 45,057,473 chances of not winning.
If you buy two tickets, you have two chances of winning and 45,057,472 chances of not winning.
If I have to roll a 6 with a dice (or is that die) to win a prize, and have a 5 in 6 chance of not winning. On average I will win once every 6 rolls.If you buy one ticket, you have one chance of winning and 45,057,473 chances of not winning.
If you buy two tickets, you have two chances of winning and 45,057,472 chances of not winning.
If I have to roll a 5 or a 6 to win a prize, I have a 4 in 6 chance of not winning. But on average, I will win once every 3 rolls. By doubling my chances of winning, I have halved my odds.
Bookies chances and odds are slightly different, because you are not dealing with fixed maths, but more of a feeling. A non league team might be 1000/1 to win the FA Cup, but that's just a feeling. No one knows if on average it happens once every 1000 years, or every 500 years, or never. Same as horse racing.
But when talking about chance of winning and odds in something with fixed maths, like roulette, the roll of dice, the lotto, marbles in a pool, then the 2 are the same. Double your chances, halve your odds.
But if the odds are very very remote, then doubling them makes little difference in reality. If you do the lotto once a week you might win on average once every 500K years (or whatever the maths dictate). By doing 2 lines, you reduce that to once every 250K years. Either way, you are highly unlikely to win.
Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Wednesday 30th December 09:30
Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Wednesday 30th December 09:35
TwigtheWonderkid said:
loafer123 said:
Perhaps it is easier to try this from a different angle;
If you buy one ticket, you have one chance of winning and 45,057,473 chances of not winning.
Yes, on average you will win once every 45,057,473 draws.If you buy one ticket, you have one chance of winning and 45,057,473 chances of not winning.
loafer123 said:
If you buy two tickets, you have two chances of winning and 45,057,472 chances of not winning.
Yes, on average you will win once every 22,528,736.5 draws. You have doubled your chance of winning, and halved the odds.If you buy one ticket and I buy one ticket you are saying that between the two of us, the chances of winning have gone from 1 in 45m to 1 in 22.5m?!
Would you like to buy some magic beans?
TwigtheWonderkid said:
loafer123 said:
Perhaps it is easier to try this from a different angle;
If you buy one ticket, you have one chance of winning and 45,057,473 chances of not winning.
Yes, on average you will win once every 45,057,473 draws.If you buy one ticket, you have one chance of winning and 45,057,473 chances of not winning.
loafer123 said:
If you buy two tickets, you have two chances of winning and 45,057,472 chances of not winning.
Yes, on average you will win once every 22,528,736.5 draws. You have doubled your chance of winning, and halved the odds.They have royally ballsed the lottery up, top prize should be a couple of million, most people have no clue what to do with 45 million, most run out of ideas with a couple of million and treat themselves to a new Fiesta.
Its been weeks now and nobody has won it, and they make out its a good thing, there should be 30 to 40 people with a million and a bit or a couple of million.
The only bonus of such a huge amount is that you could spread it around but for your average person its more money than they will ever need, I think it screws things up as much as it helps sometimes, I think people pin their chances of happiness on a large amount of money, ok it removes uncertainty about money and you can buy nice things but that soon loses its novelty, it becomes normal and you realise it isnt the be all and end all and you dont have that dream of getting a load of cash any more to fall back on.
I have pretty much everything I need, most of what I want and there is more satisfaction in getting stuff when it takes a bit of effort, I think as humans we are better at anticipation and nostalgia than actually enjoying the now, I bought a leggy (but immaculate) seven year old Merc and to be honest I dont think I would be any more pleased if I bought a brand new one with lottery cash.
I think I may stop and stick the money into premium bonds at the minimum of £50 a month as you dont lose your stake and still have the chance of a decent win, even if the odds arent that great.
Its been weeks now and nobody has won it, and they make out its a good thing, there should be 30 to 40 people with a million and a bit or a couple of million.
The only bonus of such a huge amount is that you could spread it around but for your average person its more money than they will ever need, I think it screws things up as much as it helps sometimes, I think people pin their chances of happiness on a large amount of money, ok it removes uncertainty about money and you can buy nice things but that soon loses its novelty, it becomes normal and you realise it isnt the be all and end all and you dont have that dream of getting a load of cash any more to fall back on.
I have pretty much everything I need, most of what I want and there is more satisfaction in getting stuff when it takes a bit of effort, I think as humans we are better at anticipation and nostalgia than actually enjoying the now, I bought a leggy (but immaculate) seven year old Merc and to be honest I dont think I would be any more pleased if I bought a brand new one with lottery cash.
I think I may stop and stick the money into premium bonds at the minimum of £50 a month as you dont lose your stake and still have the chance of a decent win, even if the odds arent that great.
I'm not really a supporter of filtering it down because no-one has won it in ages, or because it's fairer if X people get X ammount each rather than one person gets X x 50, but the easiest way for them to make it do that is surely to just to tie it into the raffle numbers they have, if say £50 million is reached and isn't won, it goes down to either 1 raffle winner, or multiples of raffle winners.
On the other hand I like the big jackpot.
I couldn't retire at 30 on 2m I would need 10-15m to make it semi comfortable.
Some basic maths.
3m jackpot.
Interest at say 5% £150,000
Take off inflation at say 2.5% £75k
Less tax £40k pa.
But that's assuming you didn't buy anything and you could get 5% interest.
Hardly massively life changing.
What's the point of winning the lottery if you can't spunk a cheeky million on a nice gaff and a few choice cars and sort out the family with some.
I couldn't retire at 30 on 2m I would need 10-15m to make it semi comfortable.
Some basic maths.
3m jackpot.
Interest at say 5% £150,000
Take off inflation at say 2.5% £75k
Less tax £40k pa.
But that's assuming you didn't buy anything and you could get 5% interest.
Hardly massively life changing.
What's the point of winning the lottery if you can't spunk a cheeky million on a nice gaff and a few choice cars and sort out the family with some.
TTmonkey said:
The lottery draws every week are completely independent of all other draws past present and future. You are no more likely to win the lottery after having played it 500k times in a row than you are having played it 50000k times in a row. It has no 'memory' and what happened before or in the future plays no part in what happens today. None. It is an independent occurrence at a fixed time and nothing changes this. If you play one ticket per draw you could play it forever and not affect your odds of winning it an any time in the future. The odds would remain the same (or until Camelott change the rules).
I agree with that. But at the outset, if I were to toss a coin 10 times, on average I will get heads 5 times. I could get 10 tails, or 10 heads. Having flicked 9 tails, the odds of getting a head next time are no better than 50/50. That's bloody obvious.But if I flick a coin 10 times, and note the number of heads, and repeat the exercise over and over, then on average, I will hit heads 5 times in every 10 tosses of the coin.
Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff