Howdy! Just joined this board & wanted to share a recent story about a small recent win.
"You know, I just won $60 the other night using =COMBIN(7,5) to use 21 combinations of 7 numbers, with 5 numbers in each combination; the total pool of numbers to pick from is 1 through 36. I matched 3 out of 5 numbers, winning 6 out of 21 combinations. Each combination won 10 dollars & I spent 1 dollar on each combination (21 dollars total.)
If I had matched 4 numbers out of 5, I would have won 3 sets of 4 numbers & 12 sets of 3 numbers. 4 number matches in this particular game wins on the average about 125 dollars each ticket most of the time, but sometimes up to 900 dollars each ticket on special days. Generally, I would have won =SUM(125,125,125,12*10) or 495 dollars if 4 numbers matched.
I've got my somewhat recursive/un-iterated spreadsheet set up & once in awhile 21 dollars is not bad to spend if you like to choose 7 numbers covering all possible 5 number combinations. 7 out of 36 numbers in itself gives covers 19% (7/36) leaving 81% (29/36) still to beat. The actual odds on this game are 1:376,992 to win 5 numbers, 1:81 to win 3 numbers.
I find the PEARSON function rather interesting in finding out how accurate one LOOKUP table compares to another LOOKUP table."
I haven't browsed some of the other posts yet, but I hope some of y'all use Excel to keep track of your state's lottery.