Posted on 02/11/2015 2:49:21 PM PST by blam
Andy Kiersz
February 11, 2015
The Powerball lottery drawing for Wednesday evening has an estimated jackpot prize of $500 million.
While that's a huge amount of money, buying a ticket is still probably a losing proposition.
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 of the possible outcomes of the process, multiplying each outcome by its probability, and adding all of these 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 expected value is negative, then this game is a net loser for me.
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
No-one won the Saturday night drawing...there's another drawing tonight.
If there's no winner tonight, I will buy more tickets for the next two drawings.
I looked it up. The last go around, one winning ticket was sold. Can you imagine? One $270mm ticket?
I bought three two dollar double your winning tickets. (doesn’t double the main prize, but any lesser prize.)
Can’t win if you don’t play!
He skipped another big problem - if more than one winning ticket is sold, the prize gets divided between them.
That said, I’ve got one ticket in my wallet right now.
I bought one.
Yeah, my chances of winning are just about nil - but what the hell?
Lightning could strike.
At worst they’re $2 bookmarks....
My boss was one of those “The lottery is a tax on people that are bad at math” guys... I told him at 180 million to 1 the odds were infinitely better than getting rich working for him.
My brother-in-law always went on about how most lotto winners were broke in a couple years... I told him that was because they gave money to their in-laws, and that I wouldn’t make that mistake.
I told my wife, and truly believe, winning that amount of money would ruin any normal person’s life. You’d never have a moment of peace unless you moved to a deserted island.
Between family and outsiders looking for something, it would be awful.
If they would divide up the $500 million into 500 separate $1,000,000 prizes...I’d buy tickets.
If I win I’m going to buy myself a Congressman.
So far I’m breaking even on lotteries. I don’t buy tickets, and I don’t win anything... don’t lose anything either.
I’ve got my $4.00 in (one for the wife as well).
I’ve been actively perusing downsizing from my twin to a single. If we win this, well consider a jet with a crew!
Life is too short not to have fun with this!
In the end someone ALWAYS wins - why not a Freeper?
Jim could use a monthly donation from a Powerball winner.
Good luck Freepers!
I want to buy one ticket
“probably”
Uh...that IS the point!
Somebody wins.
Who will tell that winner he should not have bought the ticket?.....probably....
On the bright side, you'd be able to afford one.
That would be interesting. I wonder why they don’t try that?
That said, your odds of winning are nearly the same whether you play or not. ;-)
yeah; I know the ‘if you don’t play, you can’t win’ mantra’.
The thing is you should buy tickets when the pot is smaller.
Odds improve greatly.
Also, relying on Providence, only one (1) ticket needs to be acquired to win.
jus’sayin...
Every form of gambling has to be a losing proposition for the player or the gaming industry wouldn't offer it. A casino or lottery cannot remain viable by having games with even odds. If someone figures out how to shorten the odds (like card counters in blackjack), the casinos will modify the rules. They are not running a charity. Someone is paying for all the lavishness of the casinos and the players should realize who that is.
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