There are 45 balls in the normal Australian lottery.
You need six numbers to win it.
The probability of winning is one in 8,145,o6o but most people have a quick-pick which has about 24 entries, reducing the odds to a tad over one in 339,377.
So how likely are you to win?
If the church had bought a quick-pick every Saturday since JC was born, there is a 73.5 % probability that they would not have picked up a single first division prize in the 104,312 draws.
Lotteries: a tax on people who can't do maths.
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No wonder I don't win the lottery - I'm bad at math ;)
ReplyDeleteMe, too Pauline...and I prove it every Saturday! ;)
ReplyDeleteYou know I have never bought a lottery ticket......Now armed with your info, I am so glad I have not!
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese (many of whom love gambling) have a more simple outlook to winning (or losing) - they say that the chance is 50/50 - either you win or you don't!
ReplyDeleteHave you ever tried your luck so far?
ReplyDeleteAvus: I bet they don't use the same maths in their business deals.
ReplyDeleteHliza: I buy a ticket in the New Year's lottery: a triumph of hope over experience, perhaps.
Your silence is not golden, Lee! You've not visited me for eons and I'm suffering withdrawals and am fretting! ;)
ReplyDeleteI once made the comment, "there is no way I could ever win a lottery." A friend of mine replies," gee don't be so negative, of course you can, you have just as good as chance as anyone else." To which I replied, "no I don't think so, because I have never bought a ticket." I am not being negative, it is just a simple fact.
ReplyDeleteWell, how surprising to hear the statement from a learned source.
ReplyDeleteLet's start with that number,
8,145,060
HA!
First, let's whittle it down a bit.
There won't be any 1-2-3-4-5-6 calls (could be, but talk about astronomical odds!)
Also droppable are 2-4-6-8, 1-3-5-7,so on and so forth. In fact, all sets that are so evenly ditributed should be deleted.
Figure that (at least here) no numbers have been drummed up twice. By getting a list of the previously called numbers you can eliminate those already called.
With all the whittling down I'm sure y'can see that the odds are quite better....say only four or five million to one.
I put in a buck fer ours, and have fer quite a while, but all told, if I could buy a TICKET EVERY WEEK (AND i DON'T) IT WOULD STILL BE....OOPS....there....
it would still be, at most, fifty bucks a year.
So, it costs me fifty bucks a year to help "make" so many millionaires.
plus.....
the one sure fired fact is, if ya don't buy a ticket, y'won't win the lottery.
'Course, I ain't one fer trying to "outmath" the system....
I have my own system. I only buy a ticket when the prize is greater than the odds. Therefore, if the odds are 1 in 9 million, if the prize isn't at least 10 million, I don't buy a ticket.
ReplyDeleteI'm guaranteed to win, eventually.
I figure I'll need to live to be about 73 million years old, but I'm going to win, eventually.
Lee, I just read this in today's NY Tines on the lottery...
ReplyDelete"the people who denigrate lottery players are like 10-year ols who are disgusted by the idea of sex: they are numb toits pleasures, so they say it's not rational," said Lloyd Cohen, a professor of law at George Mason University and author of an economistc analysis, "Lotteries, Liberty and Legislatures," who is himself a gambler and a card counter. Dr. Cohen argues that lottery tickets are not an investment but a disposable consumer purchase, ..."
He says it is all about the fantasy of winning. Perhaps your post belongs over on your sex blog? He says the fantasy of winning stimuates the same same brain circuits that winning does.
hmmm....
(I have a terrible time trying to post here since google/blogger took over) -mikaelah