Let's Play The Lottery

[Bob Blaylock]

Every time I think of lottery madness, I think of this:

Instant rep reward for the first person to identify what it is.

An old Twilight Zone episode. My memory of the story is faint, but I think I recall that the character payed by William Shatner becomes frightened to leave the place where that silly machine is, because that machine keeps on predicting disasters if he should leave.

 

[g5000]

Every time I think of lottery madness, I think of this:

Instant rep reward for the first person to identify what it is.

An old Twilight Zone episode. My memory of the story is faint, but I think I recall that the character payed by William Shatner becomes frightened to leave the place where that silly machine is, because that machine keeps on predicting disasters if he should leave.

Someone beat you to it, years ago.

But good on you for knowing!

 

[longknife]

As a professional gambler, I have only one thing to say about lotteries. If it makes you feel good to play and you're not hurting yourself doing it - go for it!

 

[martybegan]

In honor of the Powerball jackpot hitting half a billion dollars again, I am bumping this topic.

There are still 69 balls and 26 red Powerballs in the mix, so the odds of winning the full jackpot remain at a stratospheric 292,201,338 to 1.

292,201,338 is 120 percent of the adult population.

If you win, you can take 30 installments over 29 years, or you can take a lump sum which is about half the full jackpot.

Powerball Jackpot Jumps To $510 Million, Where To Buy Tickets In Tennessee

Financial experts say that if you can get more than a 3 or 4 percent return on an investment, the lump sum is actually the best way to go in the long-term.

As if people hold onto the lump sum and don't spend any of it, and live off the interest.

I would take the installment plan for the full amount. 510 million / 30 = $17 million a year. I think I can manage to survive on that.

4 percent interest off the lump sum comes to about $10 million a year. But that's assuming you get the total lump sum, which you don't.

Because...

The federal tax on lottery winnings is 25 percent.

And then you have to add your state's income tax, if there is one in your state.

The Lottery is a tax on people bad at Math. That being said I've been playing the same numbers in various 6 ball/5ball+1 formats since I was 18.

Like everyone else with wishful thinking I have my plans for the $$.

1st: Call my sister in law lawyer and have her read up on lottery law.

2nd: Only take 60% for myself and my wife

3rd: Split the other 40% in equal shares to the following families: Mother,Father/stepmom, brother/SIL, Sister/BIL, mother in law, and Brother in law. That takes care of them, and spreads the grubby family targets around.

I would become Santa Claus, flying from children's hospital to children's hospital, paying for surgeries for kids whose families can't afford it.

I think my charity would be more along the lines of giving homeless people a chance to clean up if they want to, Detox, a job or something like that, and if they don't turn it around and want to go back on the street, fine, move on to the next one.

 

[Crixus]

The Mega Millions jackpot is now over half a billion dollars!

As of one minute ago, it was reported at $540,000,000.

Ever wonder how to calculate the odds of winning? Well, pay attention and I will show you.

Since the order the numbers come out of the cage don't matter, this is a combination calculation rather than a permutation. In a permutation, the order matters. For instance, 9-6-3 won't open a lock which opens with 3-6-9. Which is why combation locks should really be called permutation locks.

But I digress.

The secret formula for calculating your odds of winning a lottery is...

n! / r!(n-r)!

Where n is the number of balls in the cage, and r is the number of balls drawn out.

The exclamation point means it is a factorial. You multiply the number times every number below it, down to 1.

For example, 5! = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1

Powerball and Mega Millions toss in an extra sixth ball which is drawn from a separate set of balls. So after you calculate the odds for the first set of balls, you then need to multiply your result by the number of balls in the second set.

So...Powerball draws 5 balls from a cage of 59 balls, and then 1 ball from a cage of 35 balls.

59! / 5!(59-5)!

This equals:

59 x 58 x 57 x 56 x 55 x 54! / 5! x 54!

Cancel out the common factors of 54! and you have:

59 x 58 x 57 x 56 x 55 / 5!

This gives you 5,006,386. So your odds of drawing the right combination of 5 balls from a cage of 59 balls is 5,006,386 to 1.

But you are drawing a sixth ball from a cage of 35 balls, so you multiply 5,006,386 x 35 to get:

175,223,510


Those are your odds of winning Powerball.

That is almost exactly 75% of the US adult population. 3 out of every 4 adult Americans would have to buy a unique combination of numbers for someone to win in a single draw.

Since not that many Americans actually buy tickets every drawing, and some people have the same combination as others, we rarely have a winner every draw. And that is why the jackpot climbs and climbs and climbs.

Notice that for every ball you add or subtract from the powerball cage, you increase or decrease the odds of winning by 5,006,386.

In 2011, there were 39 balls in the second cage, instead of 35. Which means your odds of winning decreased by almost another 20 million. The exact figure is:

195,249,054


So your odds in Powerball are actually better this year than last year.

But...it now costs $2.00 to play instead of the $1.00 it cost every year since its inception.

Speaking of Powerball's inception, that was 1996. And back then there were 5 balls drawn from 50, and one ball drawn from 25.

That means in 1996, your odds were 52,969,000. When you compare that to the 175,223,510
of today, there is clearly a whole lot of scamming by the government going on.


That is also why jackpots that exceeded $100 million were very rare from 1996 to 2000.

Nowadays, they are quite common.

Dave Ramsey calls it "paying stupid tax" and a waste of moneand I see his point, but I figure for like, 25 of my 43 years on this planet I spent $2.00-$7.00 a day on smokes. Sure, buying a lotto ticket may be mearly indulging some addiction or need, but what the hell else you going to blow a few bucks on ?

 

[g5000]

When I started this topic in 2012, Powerball had a draw of 5 balls from a cage of 59 balls, and then 1 ball from a cage of 35 balls.

Your odds of winning the Powerball jackpot in 2012 were 1 in 175,223,510.

Today, Powerball has a draw of 5 balls from a cage of 69 balls, and then 1 ball from a cage of 26 balls.

This has decreased your odds of winning in 2018 to 1 in 292,201,338.

There are only 250 million adults in the US. And Powerball is available not available in all 50 states. It is played in 44 states.


When I started this topic in 2012, Mega Millions had a draw of 5 balls from 56, and one ball from 46.

Your odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot in 2012 were 1 in 175,711,536. Almost the same as Powerball at the time.

Today, Mega Millions has a draw of 5 from 70, and one ball from 25.

This has dramatically decreased your odds of winning in 2018 to 1 in 302,575,350.

This means that if every adult in America bought a ticket, and every ticket had a different combination of numbers, there is still a 25 percent chance no one will win!


And that is why these jackpots are getting to such astronomical amounts.

Sooner or later, they are going to screw the pooch.