I need help with odds calculations

Reply #26

looking4$ — Sat, 23 Apr 2016 02:26:45 GMT

Well said Wisconsin3054. Exactly, trying to feel better about my chances/choices and not failing into the Quick Pick cesspool.

Reply #25

RJOh — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 14:29:35 GMT

Members are always asking about calculating lottery odds, I'm surprised Todd hasn't included one among the many tools at LP.

Reply #24

JADELottery — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 12:40:48 GMT

must not be important anymore.

but, it does give us a thought.

Reply #23

JADELottery — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 16:54:57 GMT

Interesting read.

Can any of you math wizzards help me find out what my odds would be if I eliminated 5 out of 26 Powerballs or 10 out of 69 field numbers?

This we understand.

Is there a general formula so I can plug in the numbers on different size games to see how my odds will increase/decrease?

Does 'different size game' mean different sets to eliminate, like eliminate 10 out of 26 Powerballs instead of 5 out of 26 Powerballs, as an example?

Oh, I am using p... [ More ]

Reply #22

Wisconsin3054 — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 14:28:39 GMT

Ahhh.. Sanity and common sense. Wonderful to see.

Reply #21

KY Floyd — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 03:32:11 GMT

You've obviously never take a course in logic or you'd recognize that the conditions for a lottery wheel and my analogy about Bill Gates are both conditional statements following the usual if-then format, and they're both true. If the required conditions are met then the result will occur. That the conditions may not be met doesn't make the statement untrue. You've used your own conditional statement about winning MM - if you play the winning combinations then you'll win (regardless of whether o... [ More ]

Reply #20

rcbbuckeye — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 20:24:58 GMT

Well. Not sure about your mind game thing. I dont play mind games. I use strategies to help play the lottery.

Reply #19

rcbbuckeye — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 20:23:14 GMT

Sorry RJ. I hadnt intended to respond to you directly. I clicked the wrong text box.

Reply #18

RJOh — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 17:11:45 GMT

Not sure how Bill Gates got into the discussion.

Actually the poster who started this thread was doing fine as long as he stucked to questions about calculating lottery games odds, it was when he assumed such knowledge could be used to calculate a winning combination that the confusion started.

Reminds me of the time I instructed a member how he could use copy and paste in Notepad to replace the numbers in a lottery wheel and he replied that was easy now tell me how to write a program us... [ More ]

Reply #17

Wisconsin3054 — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 16:14:59 GMT

Its understood that you are trying to reduce the odds. You do see, however, that just ignoring a bunch of numbers, or evens/odds, something like that, doesn't actually reduce the odds at all, right? Your odds are still exactly the same as if you included all the numbers in your picks. So it is really just a fictitious mind game to feel better about your chances.

Reply #16

rcbbuckeye — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 15:49:05 GMT

I learned that idea from BobP. It doesn't matter if anyone is playing QP's, or any other method. There are conditions to winning a jackpot. Again, the idea is to try to reduce the odds when the conditions of however you're playing are met. It's not perfect.

Not sure how Bill Gates got into the discussion.

Again, to each his own.

Reply #15

RJOh — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 20:06:36 GMT

It's no different than saying I'll be a billionaire tomorrow if Bill Gates writes me a big enough check tonight. It's 100% true and there's a 99.999999999999999% chance it won't happen.

I doubt if even a relatives of Bill Gates would think there's a chance of a snowball in hell of that ever being true let alone actually happening but saying if I pick the next MM winning combination with 20 lines I'll be a millionaire is 100% true and there's a .000000077252% chance it will happen because it... [ More ]

Reply #14

KY Floyd — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 19:09:36 GMT

Exactly. If somebody really believes wheeling actually works they should just wheel 5 regular numbers and 1 bonus number, and then play all one of the possible combinations. If the conditions are met they'll win and they won't have lost any money playing a bunch of losing combinations.

Of course that bit about ff the conditions are met probably won't work in your favor. It's no different than saying I'll be a billionaire tomorrow if Bill Gates writes me a big enough check tonight. It's 100% t... [ More ]

Reply #13

Wisconsin3054 — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 17:27:41 GMT

Right, but just making the point that filtering out the 50s and previous draws or other numbers doesn't change the odds at all. Combine the odds of your conditions occurring with the odds of being right within your remaining numbers and you are back to the same odds you started with. Its more a mind thing than anything else.

Taken to the extreme, if I filter out everything but one remaining combination of numbers, I have increased my odds of winning to 100% if my conditions have been met. Sti... [ More ]

Reply #12

rcbbuckeye — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 15:39:45 GMT

What a person is trying to do is filter out numbers to reduce the odds. IF the conditions in the draw are met, then a person has better odds than playing the entire field of numbers in the game. When I pick numbers for Texas Lotto (6/54). I don't play numbers in the 50's, or numbers that were in the last draw. So I'm playing from a pool of 43 numbers for odds of 1 in 6096454, instead of 1 in 25,827,165. That's over 19 million combinations off the table.

Does it work all the time? Of course no... [ More ]

Reply #11

RJOh — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 15:06:57 GMT

I'm trying to figure, is picking your own numbers really better than just playing Quick Picks?

According to websites like MUSL and many state lottery websites, 70-80% of all winners are quick-picks but the percent of winners among the self-picks and quick-picks are the same.

Reply #10

Wisconsin3054 — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 13:38:33 GMT

If you took away 1/3 of the numbers it would only improve your chances if the lottery also took away the same 1/3 of numbers.

As far as your second question, that's the million dollar question the it appears people have been trying to solve here for years. Still not answered in my opinion. Some believe they find the patterns and systems that solve it, but I haven't seen evidence that bears that out as of yet. Still hoping its out there somewhere though

Reply #9

looking4$ — Sat, 16 Apr 2016 18:25:49 GMT

If you take away 1/3 of the numbers wouldn't your chances increase to 1:97,400? What I'm trying to figure, is picking your own numbers really better than just playing Quick Picks

Reply #8

Wisconsin3054 — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 17:28:33 GMT

The point was that you can reduce the number pools all you want, but it doesn't reduce the actual pool of numbers in play.

Reply #7

RJOh — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 12:55:27 GMT

True but since the winning combinations only have 5 of the 69 numbers pool and 1 of the 26 bonus numbers pool players are constantly trying to win and reduce their cost by reducing the number pools, it called wheeling.

As demonstrated by the participants in the Maddog's challenges, they are usually lucky to cover enough of the winning numbers to have even a small win.

Reply #6

KY Floyd — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 20:29:46 GMT

what my odds would be if ...

Each ticket you buy will have odds of 1 in 292,201,338 for winning the jackpot. It doesn't matter how many numbers you decide not to use, because when they conduct the drawing they're going to use all of them.

Reply #5

Raven62 — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 08:47:31 GMT

Easy as PI: http://wizardofodds.com/games/lottery/powerball-calculator

Reply #4

looking4$ — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 03:12:59 GMT

Great. Thanx for the info

Reply #3

RJOh — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 02:00:47 GMT

Sorry, that 5/6+B should be 5/5+B and those figures were for a 5/59+1/20 game. That will be obvious when you check them with an odds calculator.

Reply #2

looking4$ — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 00:39:42 GMT

Thank you for your response RJOh. So in reality you are making that game a 5/49+1/14? I don't understand what 5/6+B is.

Reply #1

RJOh — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 00:16:42 GMT

You don't need to be a math wizard, any odds calculator can be used to answer your question. If you reduce the number pool by 10 and the bonus pool by 6 then you would figure the odds for a 5/59+1/20 game which would be:

5/6+B=1:100,127,720 with overall odds of 1:10

I need help with odds calculations

looking4$ — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 19:48:12 GMT

Can any of you math wizzards help me find out what my odds would be if I eliminated 5 out of 26 Powerballs or 10 out of 69 field numbers? Is there a general formula so I can plug in the numbers on different size games to see how my odds will increase/decrease? Oh, I am using plain ol' Excel so nothing difficult if possible.