Posted on 12/28/2017 3:09:15 PM PST by blam
The Powerball jackpot for Saturday's drawing is up to $384 million as of 11:00 a.m. ET Thursday. At the same time, the Mega Millions jackpot for Friday's drawing is up to $306 million.
Those are pretty huge chunks of money. However, taking a closer look at the underlying math of the lottery shows that it's probably a bad idea to buy a ticket.
Consider the expected value
When trying to evaluate the outcome of a risky, probabilistic event like the lottery, one of the first things to look at is expected value.
The expected value of a randomly decided process is found by taking all the possible outcomes of the process, multiplying each outcome by its probability, and adding all those numbers up. This gives us a long-run average value for our random process.
Expected value is helpful for assessing gambling outcomes. If my expected value for playing the game, based on the cost of playing and the probabilities of winning different prizes, is positive, then, in the long run, the game will make me money. If the expected value is negative, then this game is a net loser for me.
Lotteries are a great example of this kind of probabilistic process. In Powerball, for each $2 ticket you buy, you choose five numbers between 1 and 69 (represented by white balls in the drawing) and one number between 1 and 26 (the red "powerball"). Prizes are based on how many of the player's chosen numbers match the numbers drawn.
Match all five of the numbers on the white balls and the one on the red powerball, and you win the jackpot. After that, smaller prizes are given out for matching some subset of the numbers.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
How come running a numbers racket is legal for the state, but they will throw you or me in jail for it?
If you’re worried about too much risk vs reward in the power ball or mega million lotteries, play it safe with your money & buy some bitcoin.
Our Founding Fathers played lotteries.
Sheesh. Nothing wrong with spending a few bucks on a dream.
That is a lot of gymnastics to go through to show you that the ticket is a sucker bet, but so is the pass line of a craps table over time.
The only way to certainly win is don’t play.
LOL...vewry, vewry good!
It’s a very bad idea to buy a ticket... except of course for the lucky dude that wins. The concept is that wagering a negligible dollar or two, for a very distant chance to have 300 million drop on your head, is pretty sensible unless you’re utterly broke.
Someone buy me a ticket and if I win I’ll pay you back.
“How come running a numbers racket is legal for the state, but they will throw you or me in jail for it?”
Criminals hate competition.
How come threatening to lock your neighbor in your basement if he doesn't give you a third of his paycheck is bad, but the government gets to do it?
Had a Boss that told me lottery tickets were a tax on people who were bad at math. I told him that at 200,000,000 to 1 the odds were infinitely better than getting rich working for him.
The grand prize ticket may be a high-risk little reward situation for MOST ALL the buyers of the lottery ticket, but not for one - the winner.
Its for the Children...
If you did it then it would be for selfish reasons!
Do I need to add the sarcasm tag?
Math can do interesting things.
LOL, as a boss myself, I appreciate that candor/humor.
Fair enough. Now how about being fair and balanced and posting similar stories of individuals whose lives were changed for the better following their lottery wins? They certainly number more than the 20 losers you posted............
BFL! I’m off to buy my tickets before I read this.
If I spend money on a lottery ticket, I consider it entertainment money, like a movie. Throw away essentially.
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