For those who put too much money into the lottery...Previous TopicNext Topic

A question that I woke up with this morning was, what are my odds of winning the Euromillion jackpot over my lifetime and not just one draw?

It's certainly not as bad as for one draw... so I did a bit of math...

odds of winning the jackpot:              1 in 116 000 000

number of draws per week:                2

number of tickets I buy per draw:       5

now let's assume I play for 25 years.

5 (number of tickets) * 2 (number of draws per week) * 52 (number of weeks in a year) * 25 (number of years I play) = 13 000 tickets

(Ouch, that's an investment of 26 000£)

Now you have to know that I play the same set of five lines for every draw, it is important so that the math is right.

my chance of winning the big one over 25 years is.............................

116 000 000 / 13 000 = 8923.076923  One in 8923 or 1 / 8923.076923 * 100 = 0.0011206897%

Wow, I can see why some people play in syndicates, although you might share if you win big, it's more likely that you will hit something...

for example if I bought 100 tickets per draw my odds would jump to 1 in 446 or 0.22%..

it's still horrendous though is it not? To put that into perspective I'd have to live for 11 154 years and play 100 lines per draw twice a week to be sure to hit one of my 100 lines for the jackpot...and that's assuming the same numbers never get drawn more than once!!!

If you play one combination per draw, that's 1 115 384 years to win the fat one...

A couple days ago, Cassey Carrington won the Euromillions Jackpot for more than £45 000 000, she's just 22 years old. Total investment: £5... that's right, she had only opened her online account the friday before the draw and deposited the minimum required £5, that friday she invested £2 on the draw but it was a rollover. The following wednesday, having £3 left she decided to have a gamble on a £1 lotto ticket and the winning £2 Euromillions ticket. 

So I thought and thought and thought and came up with something. There is no need to buy 100 tickets per draw for a 0.22% chance of winning over 25 years (and a 100% chance to hurt financially). You cannot play a game with such odds to win, it's delusional to invest heavily in it. 1 ticket per draw, an enjoyable dream, a healthy distraction and hopefully an enormous surprise is all that it should be... and that's what I will do from now.

Any thoughts?

But sometimes you just have to buy that extra ticket.  I know it doesn't increase my odds, but it makes me feel better.  I see the odds, but I don't care.  It's like that second piece of pie, sometimes you just have to eat it.

I agree with your conclusion, Farahsan.

You're always better off to play as an individual.

Lotto groups can be nothing but a headache to be in and a nightmare to collect if you win.

There are too many horror stories of people losing everything they invested to unscrupulous pool operators who also stole the winnings.

Especially if they are in a different country than your own.

Good luck to you!

Very good conclusion. Same conclusion I arrived at this year. It's so hard to win a jackpot game that cost control is a big part of playing. I usually play one line on each game. If I win a few bucks, then I'll play 2 lines on Texas Lotto and Texas 2 Step. I always only play one line on PB and MM. If Texas 2 Step rolls over 500k, then I divert money from the other games to play heavy on it, because it has the lowest odds of all the jackpot games.

I just realized at the end of 2011 that I was spending way too much on the lottery and set a budget and I'm sticking to it.

you math is a little off. unfortunately i cant remember how to do it correctly.

i will use the example of a 6 sided dice.

say you backed the number 1 coming up for a roll, theres a 1 in 6 chance. if you backed 1 or 2 theres 2 in 6 chances. but if you back  the number 1 for two tosses In a row, the chance is not 2 in 6. it is 1 in 6 , twice.

lets say you covered the numbers 1-6, the chance would be 100%, but if you backed the number one  6 times it would not be 100% it would be 1 in6, and 1 in 6 and 1 in 6. etc. theres a small difference, i cant remeber the way to work it out tho.

ok i looked it up.

1-([5/6]^6) or

.666% chance of getting at least 1 1 in 6 tosses.

this is going to bust my brain, and i will prob get the math wrong. but

there will be 2600 repeats of 5 in 116m odds.

if we type in the numbers to the formula i stole.

 115 999 995 / 116 000 000 = 0.99999995689655172413793103448276

then that is to the power of the number of draws repeated, ie 2600

so 0.99999995689655172413793103448276^2600 = 0.99988793731155968492461570214709

then 1 subtract that.

1.1206268844031507538429785291391e-4

or .00011206268844031507538429785291391 %

anyhow heres the page explaining the odds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy#Other_examples

Yes it's confusing, is it not?

Actually, that's why I stressed two things:

1. that I played the same numbers

2. that we assume the same numbers never get drawn twice.

To go back to your dice example if I keep backing number 1 and the same number never comes up more than once I have a 100% chance of hitting it after 6 throws. You are probably talking about the version which takes multiple identical draws into account but that will be an estimate and it's way more complicated to understand, I like my math to be simple and exact :-p

So in those conditions, it will take that long to hit the jackpot...

yeah i can never remember the formula , so had to scour the net for it. the weid thing is no matter what the odds. when repeats are played  so that you think its %100 certain to get a win, ie a 1/10 chance, repeated 10 times , the actually answer is 66%. or indeed 1 in 1million lotto,  replayed 1 million times, is 66%

tHATS how i knew my formula was wrong,  doing the dice example,

Here is a perspective to consider when playing powerball or other million dollar games, unlike with the pick 3 or pick 4 you can sit down at a table and look at all the possible numbers that will fall.                                   

With the powerball , if you had all combinations written down on 1 inch squares it would take about 17 acres to lay them out. Now most of you live on less than an acre, where would you like to start picking??

I just want to play enough that will fit on my 4 acres.