Original Blog Entry: "One In 1000": Odds of winning lower-tier prizes

mediabrat — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:12:16 GMT

In my first post, I said I didn't know where to start calculating how much money you could win on average by playing 0.1% of the possible Mega Millions/Powerball combinations. However, thanks to Lottery Post member RJOh, we do know the odds involved as far as Mega Millions is concerned, and from this we can take a stab at the amount of money one could expect. One might think this would put a premature end to The One In 1000 Project, but the way I see it, this gives us a benchmark against which to compare future results.

Chart courtesy of RJOh:

combination size 5

basic pool size 56

(B) Bonus pool size 46

smallest match no (B) number 3

largest match with bonus 5

smallest match with bonus 0

tickets or chances per draw 175000

possible combos of 5/56 + 1/46 numbers = 175711536

MATCH ODDS WINNING COMBOS ODDS 175000 CHANCES EXPECT MATCHES

5/5+B 1 : 175711536 1 1 : 1004 0.00

5/5+0 1 : 3904701 45 1 : 22 0.04

4/5+B 1 : 689065 255 1 : 4 0.25

4/5+0 1 : 15313 11475 1 : 0 11.43

3/5+B 1 : 13781 12750 1 : 0 12.70

3/5+0 1 : 306 573750 1 : 0 571.43

2/5+B 1 : 844 208250 1 : 0 207.41

1/5+B 1 : 141 1249500 1 : 0 1244.44

0/5+B 1 : 75 2349060 1 : 0 2339.55

______________________________________________________________________________

overall odds are 1 : 39.8 4387.2 total expected wins

4405086 winning combos = 2.5 % of possible

Odds aren't very good of getting a 4/5 +1 with 175000 lines.

So based on these numbers, here's what we can expect in terms of winnings (assuming I'm applying the right math concepts and my calculations are correct):

MATCH PRIZE PER MATCH EXPECTED WINNERS TOTAL PRIZES

5+1 Jackpot 0.00 $0

5+0 $250,000 0.04 $10,000

4+1 $10,000 0.25 $2,500

4+0 $150 11.43 $1,714.50

3+1 $150 12.70 $1,905

3+0 $7 571.43 $4,000.01

2+1 $10 207.41 $2,074.10

1+1 $3 1244.44 $3,733.32

0+1 $2 2339.55 $4,679.10

TOTALS 4387.25 $30,606.03

The number of matches is consistent with our limited results thus far, though the dollar amount is a bit high. However, I attribute that to the $12,500 added on by the rare 5+0 and 4+1 wins. We'll keep an eye on this and see how closely life imitates math.

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