Powerball probability question

Reply #6

jarasan — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 01:58:07 GMT

Another formula:

55/5 x 54/4 x 53/3 x 52/2 x 51/1 =

11 x 13.5 x 17.6 x 26 x 51=

3,465,633.6

~1 in 3.5 mil.

There are a lot of opinions of playing 20 tix as opposed to 1 ticket, my opinion is: 20 tix gives you 20 1 in 3.5 mil. bets, because the odds still remain the same, each ticket is still a 1 in 3.5 million bet, making 20 different bets, doesn't change (or improve) significantly the odds of anyone person hitting 5 of 5 in Powerball. You might hit a little one (3/5,4/5), may... [ More ]

Reply #5

Thoth — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 18:32:24 GMT

...buying 20 tickets is a better strategy for losing $20 than it is for improving your chances of winning something.

Actually your chances of winning something goes up drastically when playing 20 different combos. Of course this doesn't mean your chances of wining an actual profit will improve much.

If you played the same group of 20 different combos with hopes of winning 5 of 5 without the powerball, you would have to play the same 20 combos for about 123,505 consecutive games to give... [ More ]

Reply #4

KY Floyd — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 05:10:51 GMT

The easy formula is to look at powerball.com, and click on how to play and then the 9 ways to win link to find the odds. Not that it's a big difference, but it's pretty close to 1 in 3.56 million for each ticket. Your overall odds are determined by dividing the odds by the number of tickets you have, assuming each ticket has a different set of numbers. Buy 10 tickets and you've got a 1 in 356,000 chance of hitting 5+0. Buy 20 ticket and it's 1 in 178,000. Of course your odds of winning anyt... [ More ]

Reply #3

Thoth — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 05:08:43 GMT

Here is the formula for finding your odds of having the first five numbers but not the powerball but not the winning powerball at the same time

(55!) ((55-5)!)

-------------------- 42 41

(5!))

This will give you odds of 1 in 3,563,608.83. There are 3,478,761 five number white ball combinations but the above formula takes into consideration the chance that you could actually get the powerball right. I don't believe you can play the game without pick... [ More ]

Reply #2

Coin Toss — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 22:19:04 GMT

Excellent way to put it

Reply #1

guesser — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 21:33:25 GMT

1 in 3.5 million. Per ticket.

Powerball probability question

Fortuna — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 20:27:15 GMT

What is the probabilty of getting all the white balls and not the powerball when buying 5, 10, 20 quick picks for one drawing? What is the formula?

I am sure the answer has already been posted on this forum. I searched but I could not find it.

Thanks to all the experts