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Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

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Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#71

Post by downandout »

guelo wrote: post #37
rdtsc wrote: post #18

The obvious equivalent for the HN crowd: "Here is $50k. Now quit your job and start a start-up" Difficulty bonus -- startup idea is generated by a Markov chain and could be anything -- "Uber for dogs", "Taxidermied pets as drones" etc.

1. The odds of succeeding at a startup are a lot better than 292 million to 1. 2. You get a paycheck, even if it's less than market rate. 3. It's fun and exciting to use someone else's money to try to come up with a new business type.

>3. It's fun and exciting to use someone else's money to try to come up with a new business type.

Most startups are not able to raise money from outside investors. In fact I'd say outside of the Stanford student/graduate/dropout crowd, it's probably less than 1%. The other 99% also don't get paychecks because they can't draw from investment capital they never got.

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#72

Post by [deleted] »

Mtinie wrote: post #57
mmanfrin wrote: post #36

Question: With a jackpot of $800mil and the chances of winning 1 in ~300mil, could you not buy 300mil tickets? (Excepting, of course, the risk that someone else wins and the cost of taxes).

Each ticket costs $2. Splitting the pot and paying taxes on the lump sum or taxes + time on the annuity means that you likely take a net loss buying all the possible numbers.

[deleted]

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#73

Post by LanceH »

n0us wrote: post #51
CPLX wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lottery as a service

Get a $1 lottery ticket mailed to you in a nice cardboard box every month for only $11 dollars a year.

I wanted to sell used lottery tickets for half price. The expected value of each ticket is higher than the regular lottery and it isn't gambling.

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#74

Post by srum »

pjbriggs wrote: post #28
rdtsc wrote: post #18

The obvious equivalent for the HN crowd: "Here is $50k. Now quit your job and start a start-up" Difficulty bonus -- startup idea is generated by a Markov chain and could be anything -- "Uber for dogs", "Taxidermied pets as drones" etc.

are you telling me a markov chain came up with these 2 at least billion dollar ideas?

Competition:

https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=tB6QVsOuHPHS8AeM0YuwC...

https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=tB6QVsOuHPHS8AeM0YuwC...

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#75

Post by kinofcain »

QuotedForTruth wrote: post #31
baldeagle wrote: post #6

Isn't this the wrong problem? It lets you enter X dollars, then it simulates if you played $1 on X numbers of sequential drawings... which would have terrible odds. Wouldn't it be better to simulate X numbers on Y draws, which would lead you to know the number of times/people would have to play to win. I don't think probability is communicative, is it? EDIT: It would also be neat to simulate the number of winners you…

Its not exactly the same but its pretty close when the chances are so low anyways. Playing 10,000 times in 1 drawing gives you the probability of winning the jackpot: 0.00003422297813=10000/292201338 Playing 10,000 times in 10,000 drawings gives you the probability of winning the jackpot: 0.00003422239258=1-((292201338-1)/292201338)^10000 The difference gets more significant if you play more. For 10 million plays its…

Not just nearly identical to each other, they're nearly identical to zero. So your odds of winning are effectively the same whether you play or not.

It approaches 1.0 as you buy more tickets, but even at $800m, the lump sum payout of $491m is still lower than the cost of buying all possible $2 tickets ($584m).

And even if you could buy all tickets you still might have to split the winnings...

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#76

Post by worried_citizen »

I recently purchased a OneRNG trng and decided to give it a chance at guessing the right number with its quantum-noise super powers. Reading from it overnight produced 24 million guesses and no winner. Though several were just one number off. Too bad so sad.

I'm really curious what RNG the registers use when people say "let the computer guess for me". I'm pretty sure they don't all have a TRNG installed on the circuit...

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#77

Post by QuotedForTruth »

ethbro wrote: post #63
bradleyjg wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you play quickdraw you could get the same numbers twice. I think with that caveat the odds should be the same.

To be fair, wouldn't the odds of QuickDraw picking the same numbers twice (even if there weren't a built in limit against that) be the same odds as winning the jackpot in the first place?

Only if you are only picking two sets of numbers. If you are doing 10k sets, the last set has a 9999/292M chance of being the same numbers as one of the other sets.

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#78

Post by elbigbad »

jaynos wrote: post #68
jdhawk wrote: post #43

Buy a $2 ticket for entertainment, not "investment." Spend 10 minutes imagining what you'd do with $496M. It might be fun.

Join lottery pool at work. Might lose $2, but won't have to kill myself if everyone at the office wins and I have to show up everyday remembering that fact.

Really I didn't even enter the office pool for years, but then started. $2 is worth the bonding with your coworkers.

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#79

Post by LanceH »

bradleyjg wrote: post #39
QuotedForTruth wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not exactly the same but its pretty close when the chances are so low anyways. Playing 10,000 times in 1 drawing gives you the probability of winning the jackpot: 0.00003422297813=10000/292201338 Playing 10,000 times in 10,000 drawings gives you the probability of winning the jackpot: 0.00003422239258=1-((292201338-1)/292201338)^10000 The difference gets more significant if you play more. For 10 million plays its…

If you play quickdraw you could get the same numbers twice. I think with that caveat the odds should be the same.

It evens out on expected payout. There is a chance on 10,000 sequential plays that you win the lottery 10,000 times.

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#80

Post by akg_67 »

guelo wrote: post #37
rdtsc wrote: post #18

The obvious equivalent for the HN crowd: "Here is $50k. Now quit your job and start a start-up" Difficulty bonus -- startup idea is generated by a Markov chain and could be anything -- "Uber for dogs", "Taxidermied pets as drones" etc.

1. The odds of succeeding at a startup are a lot better than 292 million to 1. 2. You get a paycheck, even if it's less than market rate. 3. It's fun and exciting to use someone else's money to try to come up with a new business type.

You seem to have rose-colored view of startup and what it takes to succeed with a startup.

Your odds of succeeding at a startup may not be better. With powerball, you are risking $2 for 292 million to 1 odd. With startup, you are risking several thousand multiples of $2 in opportunity costs for potential return that might be at best 10x.

As a founder you don't get a paycheck unless you raise decent amount of OPM. There are 100s of founders who fail to raise any funding for every one who raises some. You just don't hear about such founders. Same applies to your point 3. You should talk to people who have raised OPM and the handcuffs they operate with.

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