The Lottery

Do you play and do you think its rigged or not fixed?

I recently bought 3 tickets for a 50 million dollar prize cost me 15$

when I saw the winning numbers it started off with 14, and it made me wonder? who would start the first number at 14? It starts at 1 to 50/ you can choose 7 numbers. It never starts at 14, it always starts at 02 or 05 or something lower then works its way up.

Sometimes I feel its controlled.

Drawing Results :

Bonus:14 26 31 34 37 38 45 48 they never have numbers so close together?

you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than winning the lottery.

Seven numbers one through fifty?

Would you like to see the odds on that? I could tell you but you'd laugh because it sounds like a number an infant made up so I have to actually show you the numbers.

There are 30414093201713378043612608166064768844377641568960512000000000000 different outcomes for that (note that KMC's software doesn't even know how to deal with a string of digits that long). So its rigged in the sense that the grand prize is extremely safe. If everyone on earth bought a billion tickets a second for a billion days the odds of any ticket hitting all seven numbers correctly between all of us would be several orders of magnitude less than one in a billion.

lottery = stupid tax

well I've come close with 4 numbers right?? lol

but in all honestly I notice that whenever someone does win, the following week no one wins,

Im still going to play but im going to use my psychic powers

Originally posted by rudester
but in all honestly I notice that whenever someone does win, the following week no one wins

That should be expected. The odds of winning on a given week are low, the odds of two consecutive wins are lower than that. Moreover after a win the jackpot drops which means fewer people buy tickets.

The ones that mainly win on the lottery are the ones selling the tickets.

Either way it's a 50^-8 chance — or one in 39 trillion. So if you pay $1 for a ticket with those odds the prize should be $39 trillion, that would be fair. Now you might want to cut a few percentage out of that if they intend to go with profit, but $50 million is ridiculous. You're being scammed.

Originally posted by Astner
The ones that mainly win on the lottery are the ones selling the tickets.

Either way it's a 50^-8 chance — or one in 39 trillion. So if you pay $1 for a ticket with those odds the prize should be $39 trillion, that would be fair. Now you might want to cut a few percentage out of that if they intend to go with profit, but $50 million is ridiculous. You're being scammed.

Originally posted by Astner
The ones that mainly win on the lottery are the ones selling the tickets.

Either way it's a 50^-8 chance — or one in 39 trillion. So if you pay $1 for a ticket with those odds the prize should be $39 trillion, that would be fair. Now you might want to cut a few percentage out of that if they intend to go with profit, but $50 million is ridiculous. You're being scammed.

50 to the power of 8? (I assume the negative is left over from doing all that physics notation) How do you figure?

I'm aware that 50! is a bit naive since they usually don't require you to match all the numbers but how did you chose 50^8 in particular?

To the OP: what the heck lottery are you playing? MegaMillions and Power Ball are only $1 per ticket and the winning amounts often get into the hundreds of millions.

Originally posted by Ascendancy
To the OP: what the heck lottery are you playing? MegaMillions and Power Ball are only $1 per ticket and the winning amounts often get into the hundreds of millions.

Prices on both of those have risen above $1 in many places.

Then all I can say is ouch.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
50 to the power of 8? (I assume the negative is left over from doing all that physics notation) How do you figure?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I'm aware that 50! is a bit naive since they usually don't require you to match all the numbers but how did you chose 50^8 in particular?

In which case the first number is randomly selected from 50 different numbers, and so is the second, the third, etc.

In which case you do have 1/(50^8), or 1 in 36 trillion.

Now if the same numbers can't be chosen more than once, then the first number is randomly selected out of 50, the second out of the remaining 49, etc.

In which case you'll have: 1/(50*49*...*43) or more generally: (50-8)!/50!, in which your 1 in 22 trillion.

If you want to remove the order as well, i.e. as long as you select number 50 it doesn't matter where it pops up as long as it pops up then you'll have 8!(50-8)!/50!, or 1 in 537 million which — while a lot fairer — is still a rip-off.

Originally posted by Astner
In which case you'll have: 1/(50*49*...*43) or more generally: (50-8)!/50!, in which your 1 in 22 trillion.

If you want to remove the order as well, i.e. as long as you select number 50 it doesn't matter where it pops up as long as it pops up then you'll have 8!(50-8)!/50!, or 1 in 537 million which — while a lot fairer — is still a rip-off.

Since 7 numbers are drawn (they put 50 numbered balls into a tank, 1-50, and pull one ball out at a time), and none of the numbers are the same, I think the probability of guessing it is this:

1/(50*49*48*47*46*45*44)

or

1/503,417,376,000

Originally posted by dadudemon
Since 7 numbers are drawn (they put 50 numbered balls into a tank, 1-50, and pull one ball out at a time), and none of the numbers are the same, I think the probability of guessing it is this:

1/(50*49*48*47*46*45*44)

or

1/503,417,376,000

So we have:

1/(50^7), 1/(50!/(50-7)!), or 1/(50!/(7!*(50-7)!).

Either way, the last gives 1 in 99,884,400, so $1 for $50 million isn't too bad, assuming that you have other prizes, and that you'll have to cover other the making of the ticket, the hiring, the air time, etc.

Originally posted by Astner
In which case you'll have: 1/(50*49*...*43) or more generally: (50-8)!/50!, in which your 1 in 22 trillion.

How is 1/50! the same as 42!/50! ? I don't follow that generalization.

I any event I got a number vastly larger than 22 trillion (straight up 50! for the number of permutations) but I think I see my mistake now. They rearrange the numbers into rising order after being drawn (otherwise they wouldn't be organized like that every time) so order doesn't actually matter.

50!/(7!*43!) should be the number of combinations but that's just under 100 million. [edit: which I see you just got in the next post along with more of that physicist compulsion to add division to things 😛]

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
How is 1/50! the same as 42!/50! ? I don't follow that generalization.

What I said was that 1/(50*49*...*43) was equal to 42!/50!.

We have: 42*41*40*...*1 / 50*49*...*42*41*...*1 = 1/(50*49*...*43)

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I any event I got a number vastly larger than 22 trillion (straight up 50! for the number of permutations) but I think I see my mistake now. They rearrange the numbers into rising order after being drawn (otherwise they wouldn't be organized like that every time) so order doesn't actually matter.

Originally posted by rudester
Do you play and do you think its rigged or not fixed?

I play a $2.00 a week, CA Lottery and the Mega Millions.

It's a suckers bet, but people do win. I don't mind so much, since a portion of the $$$ goes to schools.

It's not rigged, how lotteries work is very clear.

And that clearness is why I don't play, cause:

Originally posted by inimalist
lottery = stupid tax

As for the usually not having a winner following a big win (though I don't know whether that is actually accurate) I assume could be explained by less people playing due to there being a smaller jackpot. The chances are the same, but less people play, so it's less likely there's a winner.

Also, the GDP of the world is only about 65 trillion, the more you know 😐

How is it a tax when it's voluntary?