The National Lottery - it could be you.

[Admin]

But it probably won't be you.

Here's the odds of winning with 1 line in one draw:



- Number of matching ball(s) -
- Odds of matching -


0: 1 in 2.3

1: 1 in 2.4

2: 1 in 7.5

3: 1 in 56.6

4: 1 in 1032

5: 1 in 54,200

5 + bonus: 1 in 2,330,636

6: 1 in 13,983,816


I think that most people are aware that the odds of winning the jackpot are around 14 million to one against. I'm not sure how many are aware of just how bad the odds are of the other wins.

Even matching 3 balls (a £10 win) only happens once every 57 plays (on average). That means that you have to pay £57 in bets for every £10 in return. ???

I play the lottery (it could be me ;D) but I only play the one line on a Saturday. There's a concern however, that the "it could be you" advertising slogan is an inappropriate appeal to emotion that encourages those who don't understand the odds of winning to play. That is those in low income groups and deprived areas - those who can least afford to lose the money.

[Eddiesilence]

I can almost hear the conversation in the House of Commons bar:

"Why don't we introduce a new tax on the poor and the gullible who don't understand what 14 million means, in order to pay for medical equipment the country desperately needs (but which we don't want to spend tax money on); and for funding prestige projects like overhauling the Royal Opera House and building the Millenium Dome?"

"Sounds good, what'll we call it?

"How about 'The National Lottery'?"

[Jessie]

I got 5 numbers twice in three months - I must have been sooooo lucky :o :o :o

I still play it regularly - "you have to be in it to win it" is another phrase :-\ :-\ :-\

Eddie - O0 O0 O0

[Admin]

I got 5 numbers twice in three months - I must have been sooooo lucky* *:o :o :o


How many lines were you putting on though? ;D

Even the most unlikely odds will happen occasionally. That's the rationale behind playing the lottery I guess. But as Eddie has pointed out, it really amounts to a tax which disproportionately gets paid by the poor.

A slightly different story was that I was at a function with several hundred people and there was a raffle. I had one of the tickets. Now, one of my mates went home early and gave me his ticket. When the raffle was drawn the winning ticket was announced and no one came forward. I could only find one ticket but didn't think much of it.

Then they had to draw again to get a winner as no one had come forward - I won. :D

Walking home, I found the other ticket in my pocket and when I looked it was the original winning ticket. ???

I don't know whose the ticket was but I kept the prize. 8)

The odds of having both tickets which were picked as winners is 44,850 to 1 against assuming 300 people were present - and that's possibly an underestimate.

[Jessie]

How many lines were you putting on though?

That is beside the point so don't split hairs :P :P ;D ;D O0 (actually it was about £20 a week but I have since seen some sense O0).

In fact, I would never attempt to calculate how much I have spent on the lottery. I would have a heart attack :o :o :o

I must have paid for the whole of the overhauling of the Royal Opera House on my own ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ;D ;D

[huw-l]

I've just started listening to the Math Grad podcast http://www.mathgrad.com
He's got a couple of shows dealing with these kinds of problems.

http://www.mathgrad.com/Podcasts/mgp4-17-06factorial.mp3
http://www.mathgrad.com/podcasts/mgp3-06-06probability.mp3

[Aardvark]

How many lines were you putting on though?

That is beside the point so don't split hairs :P :P ;D ;D O0 (actually it was about £20 a week but I have since seen some sense O0).

In fact, I would never attempt to calculate how much I have spent on the lottery. I would have a heart attack :o :o :o

I must have paid for the whole of the overhauling of the Royal Opera House on my own ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ;D ;D


£20 per week is £1000 per year. Over 10 years that buys a lot of premium bonds that are still worth £1000 and yet every month there are 2 x £1million pay outs.

As you guessed, I stopped buying lottery tickets years ago

[Jocky]

the "it could be you" advertising slogan is an inappropriate appeal to emotion

Pretty much all advertising slogans breach any number of logical fallacies, but then they don't claim to be scientific or logical. My (totally anecdotal) experince suggests that people spend money with their emotions rather than their brains quite a lot of the time anyway, so appeal to emotion is quite a sensible way to proceed when you're writing an advert.

How could you be so mean as to pick on the lottery, John? You're just sore because your emotions fell for it ;D ;D

[tkingdoll]

I'm really militant about the Lottery, I think it annoys people. In fact, I know it does.

The last office I worked at, there was a really great team environment. We were (and still are) friends, and generally had a good time. However, one day, one of my colleagues said the dreaded words...

Lottery syndicate.

I was the only team member to decline. Although I am aware that with 8 or us playing my odds were increased, they weren't increased sufficiently to entice me to give £4 per month to a profit-making organisation.

If McDonalds came along and said "give us a quid and you MIGHT get a Big Mac or you might get nothing", you'd hardly pass over your shiny coin. So why do people stuff their money into the greedy pockets of Camelot.

So, I turned down the syndicate invite and boy did I get a lot of stick.

Team: "But it's for charity!"
Me: "Firstly, I give plenty to charity already, and regularly, where most folks don't. Secondly, I could donate £4 per month to my local homeless shelter and see every single penny of it spend on the cause rather than a tiny slice".

Team: "But someone's got to win!"
Me: "Firstly, someone will only win if they have the winning combination. Secondly, the odds of winning the jackpot are so unlikely as to be near zero. I could put £4 on a six-horse race and have a 1 in 6 chance of winning."

Team: "But the jackpot is so high!"
Me: "Not when shared between 8 people, it's not. My chances of winning may increase 8-fold but the potential prize decreases proportionatly"

And so on. These arguments fell on deaf ears until I hit on a novel way of making them think:

Team: "But someone's got to win! You can't say it won't be me!"
Me: "OK. You're so sure you have a chance? I bet you £5 that you don't win a thing on the next draw."

No-one would take my bet >:D

[Jocky]

The trouble with not entering a workplace syndicate is that if the 14 mil-to-one shot did come off, you end up as the only employee left in the place :)

You are right of course that the lottery is a commercial operation run for profit, which the Govenment have connived to disguise as a charitable cause. I have nothing against the lottery per se (except in so far as it is an example of gambling, which can be a very damaging pastime if you get hooked on it) but I do object to the dishonesty of the "It's all for charity" front.

I know someone whose sister married a Camelot millionaire. It could have been anyone, but it was her >:(

[Admin]

the odds of winning the jackpot are so unlikely as to be near zero.

The probability (a number between 0 and 1) is: 0.000000071511

Skeptics often whinge about 'insignificant digits' as they're so small they're pointless. If this number is rounded off sensibly, it becomes zero.

So in everyday terms the chances of winning the lottery are zero.

[Blue Bubble]

Different question but in the same area (I don't know the distribution of prize money - I've never ever "played" any lottery anywhere):

What is the probability of making a profit from buying lottery tickets ?

[Admin]

As with any form of gambling, you'll always lose. The lottery is purely random so it's not possible to invent a 'system' to give a winning advantage like is possible with Black Jack.

There are strategies, like picking numbers over 31 and highly clustered combinations (that people will avoid), that can decrease the chance of sharing the jackpot should your numbers come up but they don't increase the chance of winning.

I think if there are several consecutive rollovers and a huge pot it would be possible to buy all 14 million combinations and win more than you put on (although that's not guaranteed either as the pot could be shared). I think there's a limit on the number of allowed rollovers now though (I think).

That's it with gambling - it's a mug's game. ;)

[doubting thomas]

I think there's a limit on the number of allowed rollovers now though (I think).



There has always been a rollover limit on the British lottery.

Not sure about the Euro lottery though.

[Mongrel]

I think there's a limit on the number of allowed rollovers now though (I think).



There has always been a rollover limit on the British lottery.

Not sure about the Euro lottery though.


Don't think so, or if there is it's a huge limit. A couple of months ago the Rollover prize got up to £125 mil

[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. ;D

[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 O0

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. :sad:

[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 ;D

[median]

Good job, I'm immortal then ;D ;D

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 ;D

[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.