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AlvaroDíaz12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
October 9, 2010
Question

Lottery check

  • October 9, 2010
  • 2 replies
  • 4758 views

Lou askme about a lottery check. Here my approach. I'm don't know very well raffles rules, but it is assumed that some money is back if a bill have some hits. And .. further analysis? Knowing some old results, which numbers must to be taken? And questions like this. I remember in the news a case of some australians guys that store a lot of bills in the Los Ángeles lottery just because the premiun was that big that the possibilites turns to side of the players. And they win, if not there are not notice. About how much money return -for 3 or 4 hits, for example- one can say that it is a good idea buy a bill?

Regards. Alvaro.

2 replies

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MikeArmstrong1-Visitor
1-Visitor
October 9, 2010

Alvaro,

Here is my two pence worth.

This topic was covered a while back in the old collab.

Mike

I
IRstuff1-Visitor
1-Visitor
October 9, 2010

I think that generally, the return on investment is still poor, even when the payoff exceeds the product of the odds multiplied by price. The reason is that the when the jackpots get that large, the number of participants also increase, so the probability of being a single winner is lowered. So, no matter what, the expectation of winning more than your investment is still quite low. For example, in the several cases where single winners had won, if a cartel had entered, they would have had to split the prize with the eventual winner, thereby lowering their expected payout by 50%. Moreoever, the jackpots are usually paid out over 20 yrs, so the future value of money is also a factor in the expectation.

TTFN

P
PhilipLeitch1-Visitor
1-Visitor
October 11, 2010

Isn't gambling is a mandatory tax on the mathematically impaired?

Nobody wins but the house.

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