If you’re in the UK and you - or anyone you know - plays the lottery, look into Premium Bonds instead. You get the same excitement during the draw and the worst case scenario is you get your money back.
Yes, I know there are better investments, but Premium Bonds have some of the fun of the lottery without just pissing your cash away.
You win every time you do not play the lottery.
You have more chance to play the lottery your whole life and never win a significant amount, than it is to win a significant amount once.
Since the lottery is a business, big part of all the ticket sales is used to run the business (and to generate profit). Only the rest is used to pay the winnings.
The lottery is run by the state government where I am, and all profits are put back into the community as grants.
Your odds of winning are just as awful, but at least you know your money isn’t just making some rich people richer.
been meaning to do the math on this for a long time but never remember about it.
Turns out I saved $43,800 by not playing the local lottery every week since my first job.
potentially times that by seven because there seems to be a different lottery for every day of the week.
I’d like to check if my smartarse sequential number pick ever won in that time but finding the historical numbers is a bit more work than I could be bothered with right now.
I buy a lotto ticket when the Powerball gets ridiculous. Probably won’t win, but I definitely won’t if I don’t get a ticket. A few bucks every year is worth that improvement from zero to non-zero.
You and many people, lowering your chances even more.
You are just donating money at that point.
I’m fine with donating like $5 every couple years. Also no, more people buying Powerball tickets doesn’t reduce chances to win at all, it’s not a raffle. The only thing that decreases with more players is, potentially, the payout assuming multiple winners.
Sounds like someone who doesn’t play
You are very slightly less likely to win the lotto if you don’t buy a ticket.
This isn’t true from the math point of view, is it?
Not playing -> chance is 0
Playing -> chance is 0.000…1
The factor between both numbers is infinity.
you’re saying there’s NO chance of winning the lottery, no matter how infinitesimally small, if you don’t buy a ticket?
do you have a source for this claim? or are you just seeking an upgrade from Bureaucrat Grade 35 to Grade 34? jk lol
Not Playing: P(ticket won) * P(found a ticket on the ground)
Playing: P(ticket won) * P(didn’t drop or otherwise lose ticket)
But what if there is a person who slaps your face with a ticket and that makes you win?
What is the mathematical definition of “slight”?
The way I see it, is that by never trying, I have statistically about the same chances of winning as someone playing.
Congrats you paid the tax.
Except their chances are infinitely higher than yours. It’s miniscule, but miniscule and finite is infinitely bigger than zero. Math gets funky around the edge cases
Not really, the chances to find a winning ticket of a lottery walking on the street is almost comparable
The chances of finding a winning ticket on the street are many orders of magnitude lower. How often do you find unredeemed lottery tickets walking on the street? I never have, the most I’ve seen are losing scratch-offs.
If someone thinks about playing lottery just tell them to bet on ‘1 2 3 4 5 6’ (or whatever the number of numbers in your lottery). Once you realize this combination is as probable as any other the chances of winning seem a lot smaller.
That is true, but as a side note i discourage you from betting on that sequence as a lot of people that studied probability end up betting on that same sequence out of spite and if it actually comes out the winnings will be much lower than expected.
What about 2 3 4 5 6 7?
I guess my crappy raffle luck as a kid paid off. Learned young that putting hope in a gamble isn’t worth it.
Nowadays I have a fun little mantra to tell people in my circle: If I’m willing to make a bet, you might not want to take it. I’m not the gambling type. I probably know something.
Statistically you can’t win by playing either
The lotto is an additional tax for people who don’t understand math
Sucker tax
