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 ...
Exactly. If all you're doing is spending disposable income, what's the harm? The same with slot machines. My wife and I spend a few Jacksons on it from time to time and have fun. If we win, we stop and go have dinner. If we lose, we laugh and go home.
People just can’t handle wealth.
I know a lot of people who think that God wants us all rich and healthy but when you see what money does to people, it’s more of a curse than a blessing.
My thoughts exactly.
If you buy a ticket, you probably won’t win. If you don’t buy a ticket it is guaranteed beyond a shadow of a doubt you will not win.
I’ve always operated on the principal of getting the best odds I can...Therefore I’ll buy at 250-million-to-1 since the odds of winning by NOT buying a ticket is about 250-million-billion-trillion-to-1 (which, incidentally, is also the odds against the truth that obamsky was born in the U.S.)
I’ve done extensive research on these lotteries, and I’ve run multiple statistical analyses on the drawings’ outcomes.
As a result, I’ve come to one single conclusion...
Every winner had a ticket.
Why not spend a few bucks on ticket? Can’t win if you don’t.
Grandma always told me these things about the lottery:
1). The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math
2) You can’t lose if you don’t play
3) All you need is a dollar, a dream and a miracle
Just bougt two of each one. Since I’m in a state that doesn’t sell lottery tickets i have to use a global buying agent and i pay a premium per ticket.
Not advertising but its called LottoKings.
And i do win smaller amounts almost every week.
BS!
See tagline.
We had a friend who was a math professor who taught this in his class.
He had never bought a lottery ticket but on a whim, bought one on the way home from class.
He won $7 million
Even better
While he was in line , a rude woman cut in front of him. So she bought the ticket he was going to buy. And he got hers.
WINNING
Gubmint should not run da numbers racket.
‘Cause Da State is now Da Mob.
Gubmint wets its beak. Like a jint friggin pelican.
“And i do win smaller amounts almost every week.”
And you’re Dave Ramsey’s little brother.
Your odds of winning a huge fortune go from absolutely zero to some infinitesimally small but non-zero number. Worth it to some folks.
Gov. sponsored gambling is disgusting.
Winners can expect to be sued, accused, taxed and hounded by moochers.
The only way to do it would be to pay the taxes in full, put the rest in an untouchable fund, and then disappear under a new identity.
A tax on those who don’t understand statistics.
To buy a few lottery tickets per year when the jackpot is in the high numbers is an acceptable level of risk for a few dollars.
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