Odds/Number Of Tickets

Reply #24

KY Floyd — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 20:26:20 GMT

The right store is an illusion. You have to buy the right ticket. If 1 out of 2,000,000 tickets wins a jackpot than *any* ticket you buy has a 1 in 2,000,000 chance of winning a jackpot. Probability doesn't know anything about different stores, and a ticket is simply a winner or it isn't.

Reply #23

Coin Toss — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 14:53:50 GMT

Honestly people, the $10 would be much better off spent on this:

The Lottery Book: The Truth Behind the Numbers (Paperback)

by Don Catlin

(Actually you can get it on amazon for $2.85

Reply #22

elmoo168 — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 06:51:39 GMT

That's what I originally thought - that $10 spent on 1 1:5,000,000 Megabucks game would bring my odds down to 1:500,000. Granted 1:500,000 is still a large number so it doesn't guarantee me anything. We were also talking about the fact that for scratchers, you have to be in the right store at the right time to pick up the winning ticket unlike pick 3/4/5/6s where you can purchase the winning ticket at any store, but that's a topic for another forum altogether

Reply #21

KY Floyd — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 07:55:25 GMT

The basic probability is really pretty simple, but that doesn't stop a number of people from getting it wrong.

A few people will tell you over and over that there is only one winning combination as if that's the only thing that matters. If that was true you'd be just as likely to win MM or PB as pick 3, since all three have only 1 winning combination for each drawing. The probability of winning any given game is determined by the number of possible combinations AND how many chances you have o... [ More ]

Reply #20

floridian — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 14:51:35 GMT

This was a great post. I am really starting to understand the issue of quick picks better. It is almost as if the quick picks represent one guy buying millions of tickets and of course eventually he will win because of the volume he is buying.

Florida does have a lot of quick pick winners, probably in the 50 to 60% range. There are also almost 15 million persons now in Florida with at least 1,000 plus new residents every day. At least that is what the tourist bureau says. So as you can s... [ More ]

Reply #19

elmoo168 — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 07:42:31 GMT

Thanks for the replies everyone - I didn't know that my question would generate so many responses! I know that no matter how you cut it, luck is the big factor in this. Most of the games have such ridiculous odds that I only play a little just to try to hit the jackpot, but I was just wondering how to maximize my chances. So say Megabucks has a jackpot of 1,000,000 and has odds of roughly 1:5,000,000 and Megamillions has a minimum jackpot of 12,000,000 but the odds are 1:175,000,000. I still... [ More ]

Reply #18

Badger — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 03:11:03 GMT

Yeah, our Pick 5/31 game here is paramutuel, with a jp that rolls every day no one hits it. And it seems more often than not, when someone hits the jp so does at least one other player. We have a Pick 6/39 game with a jp of 350K, and it doesn't become parimutuel until (as I recall) there are five jp winners on the same night. Far as I know, that has never happened yet. But generally, someone does hit that jp once a month.

Reply #17

Badger — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 03:04:57 GMT

Really? That's all there is to it? 483 years is all? Let's see.....no....wait.....I think I'd run out of money by then.

Reply #16

Coin Toss — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:33:01 GMT

Oh yeah, how true. I remember one of the big Mega Millions hits earlier this year, when they interviewed the woman who had the winner she said she only plays when the jackpot is over $100,000,000!

I understand the let everybody else build it up approach, but you know, as regular player we have to look at that as Where's the justice?

As Mrs. Coin toss says, There is no justice in lotto, it's all up to the whims of the Lottery fairy .

Reply #15

Thoth — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:07:56 GMT

The whole point about consistently playing one or more tickets is to try and deture the luck factor...not that there is anyone who can honestly say that they don't need it for these kind of games.

Point is, the larger lotteries are most often won with quick picks because the amount of different combinations sold via quick pick represents the largest portion/fraction of different combinations being played against the total amount of combinations which are possible in any given drawing. So... [ More ]

Reply #14

Coin Toss — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:54:03 GMT

Thoth

Justxploring tracks Florida winners and I track Illinois Little Lotto. We've both posted about not only most winners being Quick Picks, but also most of them being from Miami and Chicago (granted, larger population bases).

It's lottery, there is no real chance of winning , and the fact that most winners are indeed quick picks kind of blows away anything about consistently .

Someomne plays every drawing for 10 years and never gets more than three numbers, somsone plays for the... [ More ]

Reply #13

Thoth — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 15:52:15 GMT

Yes the probability would be even worse if more balls were added to the matrix. I don't know who said they would be guaranteed to hit when playing for 483 years. There is no 100% EVER, unless you play all combinations possible.

My chart just shows how many tickets must be played for how long in order to obtain a real 10% chance of winning. If you played 10 tickets for the 194.43 years instead of just one ticket for the same time, your chance would be about 65%. It just shows that unless... [ More ]

Reply #12

Thoth — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 15:38:03 GMT

Actually floridian, that chart does include the possibility of duplicates. Note the 10% chance for playing one ticket over 60,662 consecutive games. Thats how many games it should take to have very close to 10% of the 575,757 combos drawn....which is 57,576. So there are 60,662 - 57,576 = 3,086 expected duplicates occurring in that time frame.

Reply #11

Coin Toss — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 13:52:32 GMT

Thoth

Your chart assumes the same matrix, for one thing.

There was a thread here awhile back where someone quoted a mathematician who said if someone played 11 tickets for every drawing they would be guaranteed to hit- if they could play them for 483 years.

Reply #10

floridian — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 08:33:08 GMT

But are we not ruling out the possibility of duplicating the combination? I guess in a perfect world we could expect a different combination every draw until the total number of possible combinations is reached and then it starts over. However, we know that does not happen or seem to happen in the real world. Odds in my opinion are purely a guesstimate of what we think the possibility of performance will be.

Some odds makers have told me that indeed over time the total number of appearance... [ More ]

Reply #9

Coin Toss — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 07:37:51 GMT

Playing 2 MegaMillions tickets does double your chance to win no matter how bad the odds are.

It may sound like they doubled but that's not really the case.

2 + 2 has to = 4.

176,711,536 - 2 has to = 176, 711, 534.

Considering that doubling your chances to win is about the same as removing two grains of sand from a beach instead of one and saying you've just doubled your effort to remove all the grains of sand from the beach.

Boston Fire Department. (BFD

Reply #8

Thoth — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 06:50:59 GMT

Heres another way of looking at it for a 5/39 lotto:

5/39 Lotto: 6 Games Per Week = 312 Games/Yr.

# of CombosConsecutive GamesYearsChance

160,662.00194.4310%

230,330.9797.2110%

320,220.6364.8110%

415,165.4648.6110%

512,132.3638.8910%

610,110.2932.4010%

78,665.9627.7810%

87,582.7024.3010%

96,740.1821.6010%

106,066.1519.4410%

If there are 6 games per week (312 per year) and you play the same combination every single drawing, you will have to plan on p... [ More ]

Reply #7

Thoth — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 05:58:19 GMT

Whether its spiced up to sound good or left alone for what it is, the spiel about probability is the truth. Yes, there will only be one winning combination for every game and yes, the more tickets one plays the more losers he's guaranteed to have. But, the absolute best way to increase ones chance of winning is to buy multiple combinations and there really is no way around that. This doesn't mean I would ever recommend that someone spend more than what they can really afford to lose.

No... [ More ]

Reply #6

Coin Toss — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 05:03:58 GMT

Thoth

Well, thats one way of looking at it and a spiel for probabilities can be made to sound good, however the fact reamins that there can only be one winning combination.

So, when someone plays an increased number of tickets, they are also guaranteeing that they will have more losing tickets....there can only be one winner, everything else is a loser (we're talking a solid 6 for 6 here).

No matter how many tickets you play in any drawing, every line of numbers is up against the sam... [ More ]

Reply #5

Coin Toss — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 02:08:46 GMT

Thanks Badger, yeah I honed in on Mega

elmoo

Also remember you can never assume a solo hit....So, even if you overcome those odds, then the money odds , i.e., the jackpot gets split multiple ways....

People here have actually talked about borrowing enough money to play all the possible combinations in a pick 5 game- assuming no one else would hit the same drawing when they did that.

So let's say they borrow $40,000 - and then that night a $200,000 jackpot is split 6 ways - so th... [ More ]

Reply #4

Thoth — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 02:04:25 GMT

Perhaps it might be better for you to ask how buying multiple tickets affects the probability of winning. In mathematics, probability is usually listed as a decimal value between 1 and 0...1 being certainty or 100% and 0 being totally impossible. The easiest way to understand how multiple tickets can affect your chance or probability of winning is to take the total amount of different combinations that you are playing and divide it by the total amount of combinations that are possible in the g... [ More ]

Reply #3

Badger — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 02:00:05 GMT

elmoo, Cointoss is correct in his post, except he didn't use your specific game. You say the odds in the MA Megabucks are 5 million to one (i.e. 1 in 5,000,000 )

Buy ten tickets and that eliminates ten possible combinations. So if you are holding ten tickets, your odds of winning are then 1 in 4,999,990. If you bought one hundred tickets, your odds of winning would be 1 in 4,999,900, etc.

This is to say that buying multiple tickets doesn't really change the odds very much at all for the p... [ More ]

Reply #2

Coin Toss — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:37:59 GMT

The odds against hitting a jackpot are based on the total number of possible combinations of the numbers in the matrix, only one combination can be drawn. (The number of numbers needed to match the top, and then the one number for the bottom) - Mega Millions and Powerball are actually two lotteries in one, don't forget that....

Every ticket you play reduces the number of combinations for your tickets by one combination.

Someone is sure to pop in here and say that buying a second tic... [ More ]

Reply #1

JADELottery — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:54:17 GMT

The odd thing about odds is it can be misleading sometimes. Odds is the ratio of probability of success to failure. I tend to work with probability of success alone, because, it's the success that wins prizes.

Odds/Number Of Tickets

elmoo168 — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:20:21 GMT

Does anyone know how the number of tickets you buy for a game affect your odds? For example, the MA Megabucks game is roughly 1 in 5,000,000 (for simplicity) for the jackpot. If a $10 scratch ticket offers $1,000,000 with odds of winning 1 in 2,000,000, if I went and spent the $10 on 10 tickets for Megabucks, would that mean the chance of winning the jackpot in Megabucks with 10 tickets would be roughly 1 in 500,000?

I know this is a simplification and ignores all the smaller prizes you cou... [ More ]