Lottery is a bit crap
Discussion
Wife and I have done the "what would we do if we won the lottery" thing. It really was a struggle to get past £5m, buying just what we could justify as sensible. So if we won a mega amount, I reckon quite a bit of it we'd give away. So why not cap the Lotto to £5m and the Euro to £10m, with mutiple winners as the jackpot amount gets bigger.
Because I'm a massive nerd and have no friends, a few months ago I scripted a routine to get an idea on the returns of playing the same six lines every week on the the lottery (when it was based on 1-49). I let it run to simulate 1,000 years of play.
I didn't get any hits on 5+1 or 6 in that time.
I cried and then had a w*nk.
Then I cried again.
I didn't get any hits on 5+1 or 6 in that time.
I cried and then had a w*nk.
Then I cried again.
Rawwr said:
Because I'm a massive nerd and have no friends, a few months ago I scripted a routine to get an idea on the returns of playing the same six lines every week on the the lottery (when it was based on 1-49). I let it run to simulate 1,000 years of play.
I didn't get any hits on 5+1 or 6 in that time.
I cried and then had a w*nk.
Then I cried again.
That isn't very many though -- assuming twice a week, 104 lines per year, 104,000 lines in total. Out of a possible 14,000,000 (ish). And of course the probability is actually 1/14,000,000 for every single one of the 104,000 lines.I didn't get any hits on 5+1 or 6 in that time.
I cried and then had a w*nk.
Then I cried again.
robinessex said:
So why not cap the Lotto to £5m and the Euro to £10m, with mutiple winners as the jackpot amount gets bigger.
If there are multiple winners they share the jackpot. If there aren't, they can't. How do you manufacture multiple winners if only 1 person won?Also, although there may only be one winner of £40m, it might be a work syndicate of 20 or 30 people.
Rawwr said:
Because I'm a massive nerd and have no friends, a few months ago I scripted a routine to get an idea on the returns of playing the same six lines every week on the the lottery (when it was based on 1-49). I let it run to simulate 1,000 years of play.
I didn't get any hits on 5+1 or 6 in that time.
I cried and then had a w*nk.
Then I cried again.
Dunno if this has been mentioned before, but would it not be better odds to play 52 lines once a year?I didn't get any hits on 5+1 or 6 in that time.
I cried and then had a w*nk.
Then I cried again.
feef said:
Dunno if this has been mentioned before, but would it not be better odds to play 52 lines once a year?
Yes and no. If you play 1 line a week you have 1 chance in 43m or whatever it is per chance you play.
If you play 52 lines for 1 week you have a 1 in 0.82m chance for that single draw, or 52 times shorter odds. Obviously the opportunity cost is the 51 attempts you wont play in other weeks.
So they balance each other out. You have identical chances over a period of 12 months.
Condi said:
Yes and no.
If you play 1 line a week you have 1 chance in 43m or whatever it is per chance you play.
If you play 52 lines for 1 week you have a 1 in 0.82m chance for that single draw, or 52 times shorter odds. Obviously the opportunity cost is the 51 attempts you wont play in other weeks.
So they balance each other out. You have identical chances over a period of 12 months.
Er, no.If you play 1 line a week you have 1 chance in 43m or whatever it is per chance you play.
If you play 52 lines for 1 week you have a 1 in 0.82m chance for that single draw, or 52 times shorter odds. Obviously the opportunity cost is the 51 attempts you wont play in other weeks.
So they balance each other out. You have identical chances over a period of 12 months.
If you play 52 lines in one draw you have a 52 in 43m chance of winning, it doesn't suddenly drop to less than one in a million.
loafer123 said:
Condi said:
Yes and no.
If you play 1 line a week you have 1 chance in 43m or whatever it is per chance you play.
If you play 52 lines for 1 week you have a 1 in 0.82m chance for that single draw, or 52 times shorter odds. Obviously the opportunity cost is the 51 attempts you wont play in other weeks.
So they balance each other out. You have identical chances over a period of 12 months.
Er, no.If you play 1 line a week you have 1 chance in 43m or whatever it is per chance you play.
If you play 52 lines for 1 week you have a 1 in 0.82m chance for that single draw, or 52 times shorter odds. Obviously the opportunity cost is the 51 attempts you wont play in other weeks.
So they balance each other out. You have identical chances over a period of 12 months.
If you play 52 lines in one draw you have a 52 in 43m chance of winning, it doesn't suddenly drop to less than one in a million.
p1stonhead said:
loafer123 said:
Condi said:
Yes and no.
If you play 1 line a week you have 1 chance in 43m or whatever it is per chance you play.
If you play 52 lines for 1 week you have a 1 in 0.82m chance for that single draw, or 52 times shorter odds. Obviously the opportunity cost is the 51 attempts you wont play in other weeks.
So they balance each other out. You have identical chances over a period of 12 months.
Er, no.If you play 1 line a week you have 1 chance in 43m or whatever it is per chance you play.
If you play 52 lines for 1 week you have a 1 in 0.82m chance for that single draw, or 52 times shorter odds. Obviously the opportunity cost is the 51 attempts you wont play in other weeks.
So they balance each other out. You have identical chances over a period of 12 months.
If you play 52 lines in one draw you have a 52 in 43m chance of winning, it doesn't suddenly drop to less than one in a million.
If you have 10 chips, you cover 10 numbers = 10 in 37 chance of winning = 1 in 3.7.
If you have 37 chips, you cover 37 numbers = 37 in 37 chance of winning = 1 in 1.
Each individual chip has the same chance of winning, ie 1 in 37, but you are covering more of the board. If you play 2 lines, you are covering twice as many possibilities so the chances are doubled (ie your odds are halved).
Unless my school maths has failed me completely.
Edited by Condi on Monday 28th December 17:27
The lottery uses people knowledge of school level maths to convince people that they dramatically increased their chances of winning by playing more than one entry. Mathematically, you are doubling your chances. However, you are not removing half the winning combinations by playing 2 lines.
So if the odds are 1:45000000, playing 2 lines doesn't make the odds 1:22500000 as that would remove 22.5 million other losing combinations which clearly it doesn't. All you have is two chances at the same redicuous odds, one of which you know must be incorrect. Otherwise, you could dramatically increase your chances by reducing the odds by buying a couple of thousand tickets. But the reality is if you bought 2000 tickets there are still almost 45 million other possible combination.
A better way of thinking about how unlikely it is to win the lottery..... Let's say you had an Olympic swimming pool filled with small marbles. One of those marbles is the winning marble. All the others are not. You pay £2 to pick one marble. It's unlikely that you can pick the one winning one. They allow you to 'cut your odds in two' by buying two marbles. However, there are still 45 million marbles in the pool...... Still look like the odds have been cut significantly? No. You've doubled your chances but not made any significant difference to the odds.
So if the odds are 1:45000000, playing 2 lines doesn't make the odds 1:22500000 as that would remove 22.5 million other losing combinations which clearly it doesn't. All you have is two chances at the same redicuous odds, one of which you know must be incorrect. Otherwise, you could dramatically increase your chances by reducing the odds by buying a couple of thousand tickets. But the reality is if you bought 2000 tickets there are still almost 45 million other possible combination.
A better way of thinking about how unlikely it is to win the lottery..... Let's say you had an Olympic swimming pool filled with small marbles. One of those marbles is the winning marble. All the others are not. You pay £2 to pick one marble. It's unlikely that you can pick the one winning one. They allow you to 'cut your odds in two' by buying two marbles. However, there are still 45 million marbles in the pool...... Still look like the odds have been cut significantly? No. You've doubled your chances but not made any significant difference to the odds.
The only aspect that keeps me playing is the multiple millionaires raffle draw - last time around they made 10 players millionaires. OK, they must sell around 10m tickets a draw, but that's still 1 in every million tickets guaranteeing a £1 million pay out, so it doesn't seem quite so bad!
robinessex said:
Pothole said:
J4CKO said:
Who actually needs 40 odd million, it is a ludicrous amount of money, for most people a million or two is all the money they will ever need, as humans we only need so much stuff, this is why the super rich have to have other stuff to buy, i.e. normal stuff with diamonds on usually, I think such an amount may actually do more harm than good for a lot of people as it would be difficult to have a normal life, for me, a million would enable me to put money by for the kids to get ont he property ladder, couple of nice holidays, better cars, few jobs on the house and a few quid put by, not a complete change of life like 40 million would cause, but my life, which I am happy with, but a bit better.
Who actually needs to be on the property ladder?irocfan said:
got to be honest after the new year comes around I'm done with it. Always knew it was a fools 'dream' but they're just bending you over dry now
Same as me. I use to enjoy getting the odd tenner but buying the dream that you could scoop the big one. Seeing it roll is nice but not to the point no one is winning and the best prize being won regularly is 5 balls. That gets you £1300 or so at odds of 144,000 to 1 for a £2 stake. It really underlines what we all know but ignore - it's a bad bet. I want to see SOMEONE win a jackpot and have that almost impossible dream for my £2. I don't dream of landing £1300..
On the rare occasion the 5+BB is won, you get a share of around £100k. For odds of 7,500,000 to one, it's not even close to being worth the gamble as it's hardly a life changing sum of money.
Introducing the £25 minimum prize was a stupid decision as it detracts from all the other prize pools. IMO they need to go back to 49 numbers, do away with the minimum prize value and increase the value of all other prize pools. 5+BB should be mortgage clearing territory with jackpots of multiple millions not tens of millions.
I don't think lotto considered quite how many people you need to be playing to see odds of 45m to 1 being regularly beaten. I also think it's embarrassing how they can't get the results up quickly. Euromillions is played across nine different countries and by many more players and they're able to have results on line within 2 hours. Lotto currently regularly take until around 8 or 9 am the next day!
As above, I'll be stoping Lotto in the new year, it's tiresome seeing the jackpot increasing but never being won. Though when it gets to £50m, it's probably worth a punt in the hope there's a roll down.
robinessex said:
Maybe a new lotto format is required where the winnings are related to the odds. I'll do some maths and see if I can come up with something.
It's not too difficult if you get rid of the £25 min prize.Lose the free lucky dips too and the poxy raffle and it's suddenly a more attractive game. They lose the ability to give it "making x millionaires" though, which is all the raffle is any good for IMO.
Since the new numbers have been introduced only 4 of 23 draws since have not featured any. There have been two occasions when it has not been possible to watch the draw, one where the machine "broke", and another where you were supposed to be able to watch it live online, as it was not on TV that night, this did not happen.
The "fixed" £25 is a piece of s
t, as you can end up with less for four numbers, due to the way the pool is split after is meted out. The way the bonus only counts when five numbers are matched is also a crock of ste.
It needs torn up and started again, or given to someone with half a clue how to extract money from your pocket, without leaving you feeling ripped off, no matter the reality.
The "fixed" £25 is a piece of s
t, as you can end up with less for four numbers, due to the way the pool is split after is meted out. The way the bonus only counts when five numbers are matched is also a crock of ste.It needs torn up and started again, or given to someone with half a clue how to extract money from your pocket, without leaving you feeling ripped off, no matter the reality.
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