The National Lottery - it could be you.

[Admin]

Yes, it could be the Euro lottery I'm thinking of. It did indeed have a huge rollover a few weeks back and that's when they were thinking of a rollover limit.

Of course, there are something like 76 million possible combinations in the euro lottery comapared to our 14 million so buying 76 million lines is slightly above most people's budgets.

[JayUK]

I don't think that the lottery is a bad thing it’s a small price to pay for a bit of fun. I don't do it myself but on the odd occasion I have done it I play the 'hot picks' game and I've won. I think over the years I have put in about £10 to play and received about £60 so I'm up, and I always quit when I'm ahead.

The reason I don’t play the lottery is because of something I heard just after it started that put a more visual meaning to the odds. This was when it was one draw once a week. This guy on the radio said that if every combination came out just once, it would take 250,000 years for every combination to come out. I’m not a mathematician but I trust the man on the radio had worked that out properly.

Cheers

Jamie

[Admin]

Welcome Jay

It would require 268,919 years and 6 months for every combination to occur provided that each sequence only came out once.

In reality, the amount of time required for any single combination winning is much longer than that. ???

To work the odds out properly, you have to take the complement of the odds of losing.

i.e.

Probablility of winning = 1-(odds of losing)n

Where n=the number of draws.

It doesn't make encouraging reading for lottery players.

[Admin]

Here's a few figures:

Playing one line a week (as I do) to have a 50/50 chance of hitting the jackpot you'd have to play every week for 186,401 years. :(

To have a 99% chance of winning the jackpot you'd have to play every week for 1,238,420 years. :-\

Of course if you play 2 lines a week the time taken (on average) will half. :D

[median]

Good job, I'm immortal then

Now that Mr Pepys, he was a nice bloke.

Verily

[Admin]

People don't often understand odds and probability but we all know how long a year lasts.

Putting the odds in time terms illustrates just how poor they are.

I still play my line on a Saturday though. :P

[Ginger Rogers]

How often does someone win the jackpot? I don't really follow it since I don't play it.
I have played the new monday lottery though, as it goes to charity.

[Admin]

Someone wins in almost every draw. That's because so many people play. The odds of winning are about 14 million to 1 against but if there are 50 million lines on then there's a good chance that one or two people per draw will hit the jackpot.

[Ginger Rogers]

So whatever the odds may be, the chances are still high that someone somewhere will win the jackpot. Therefore it's inaccurate to say that you have 0% chance of winning (or 0.00000000000000000134456 or whatever) because you could still win
I don't do the lotto but there you go.

Incidentally how do the proceeds get spent, is camelot a government organisation in fact?

[Admin]

So whatever the odds may be, the chances are still high that someone somewhere will win the jackpot. Therefore it's inaccurate to say that you have 0% chance of winning (or 0.00000000000000000134456 or whatever) because you could still win

Yes it's likely that someone, somewhere will win but the odds of any particular individual winning are still virtually zero.

Sometimes it's more illustrative to look at the chances of losing rather than winning. For any particular line played there's a 99.999992848876% chance that it will miss the jackpot.