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You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

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Re: You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

#41

Post by Ylpertnodi »

rjmunro wrote: post #39
swarnie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK lottery does a lot of good with its funds and should be mentally separated from other betting/gambling firms in my opinion. If you want to "gamble" its the best option, if you don't you can always wait for the government to inflate your cash away or spend it on Hilton rooms for sailors.

No. It does "good" with about 25% of it's income. A lot of that "good" is stuff that the government or local councils would just fund directly if the Lottery wasn't paying for them. Much better to just give money to your favourite charity directly.

>Much better to just give money to your favourite charity directly.

Checking the (published) 'admin costs' vs actual donated/ used monies is a great way to pick favorites.

Re: You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

#42

Post by assbuttbuttass »

ecshafer wrote: post #21
angry_moose wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a few Powerball Simulators (largest US lottery) out there - simulate buying 1 ticket a week indefinitely. It usually works out to about a -90% ROI, though I did just somewhat undermine my point by hitting $2,000,000 (5 white balls + powerplay) after 246 years and becoming profitable. First time I've ever hit on one of these, I let one go for several millenia one time. http://adamlamers.com/lottery_simulator

There is a point where the expected return is positive. Its around $1B or some large number like that. Sure the expected return is like 1% positive, but its positive.

How does that work? By linearity of expectation, if the expected value of buying 1 ticket is negative then the expected value of buying multiple tickets should be even more negative

Re: You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

#43

Post by londons_explore »

angry_moose wrote: post #19
acomjean wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was young I had a friend who bought one Massachusetts (US) lottery ticket a week. I remember he "won" (basically got his money back). When he went to cash out the cashier asked him, "do you want the money.. or another ticket". He took the another ticket and promptly lost. lesson learned. You can't win if you don't play, but 2 tickets doesn't increase your odds significantly. Where I worked there was a convenie…

There's a few Powerball Simulators (largest US lottery) out there - simulate buying 1 ticket a week indefinitely. It usually works out to about a -90% ROI, though I did just somewhat undermine my point by hitting $2,000,000 (5 white balls + powerplay) after 246 years and becoming profitable. First time I've ever hit on one of these, I let one go for several millenia one time. http://adamlamers.com/lottery_simulator

I believe the UK lottery has a required-by-law payout percentage of 42.47%.

28% also has to be donated to charity.

Which means, assuming you would donate to charity anyway, you are only wasting, on average, 30% of your money.

That is substantially better than the US powerball (at ~90%).

Re: You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

#44

Post by veritas20 »

acomjean wrote: post #14
forinti wrote: post #4

Not a "win" in the financial aspect of the game: "... they matched just two balls on three of the tickets, the reward being three lucky dip tries on a subsequent lottery, each of which came to nothing. Since a ticket costs £2, the experiment represented a loss to the authors of £54. This unfortunate incident therefore serves both as a verification of our result and of the principle that one should expect to lose mone…

When I was young I had a friend who bought one Massachusetts (US) lottery ticket a week. I remember he "won" (basically got his money back). When he went to cash out the cashier asked him, "do you want the money.. or another ticket". He took the another ticket and promptly lost. lesson learned. You can't win if you don't play, but 2 tickets doesn't increase your odds significantly. Where I worked there was a convenie…

Stated another way. National and State lotteries are the largest ongoing wealth transfer from the lower-income bracket in the US. The lotteries are overwhelming played by the lower-income and that money is used to fund a large number of things in state governments.

Re: You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

#45

Post by jmharvey »

dylan604 wrote: post #36
mlyle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, spending a few bucks per week isn't necessarily irrational. The hope and entertainment has some value. And, of course, the marginal value of a couple bucks more in your pocket may be nil, but the life-changing experience of a win may have considerably more value; that is, marginal utility may not just flow smoothly downwards.

Isn't there another study of people that won big have also lost it/squandered it all within a fairly short amount of time?

Afaik (and I watch this fairly closely) there hasn't been a study. There are a lot of anecdotes, typically of the form "a person won a few million but spent like they had an income of a few million per year," sometimes of the form "a person won a huge amount of money but it turns out money doesn't solve all problems," and sometimes of the form "a person won a huge amount of money and invested it poorly." But most people who win a big lottery are still rich a decade or two later.

Re: You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

#46

Post by panarky »

mlyle wrote: post #24
angry_moose wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a few Powerball Simulators (largest US lottery) out there - simulate buying 1 ticket a week indefinitely. It usually works out to about a -90% ROI, though I did just somewhat undermine my point by hitting $2,000,000 (5 white balls + powerplay) after 246 years and becoming profitable. First time I've ever hit on one of these, I let one go for several millenia one time. http://adamlamers.com/lottery_simulator

Of course, spending a few bucks per week isn't necessarily irrational. The hope and entertainment has some value. And, of course, the marginal value of a couple bucks more in your pocket may be nil, but the life-changing experience of a win may have considerably more value; that is, marginal utility may not just flow smoothly downwards.

> isn't necessarily irrational

I used to say this to justify buying 20 tickets twice a week.

It's not irrational I can afford it, right? And the purchase gives me the psychological reward of dreaming about a big win.

But then after every draw I'd check my numbers and suffer a twinge of buyer's remorse. For me, that (small) regret more than offset any positive psychological benefit. It was a minor addiction that did more harm than good.

So now I've cured my addiction by turning Buyers Remorse into whatever the opposite of that is.

I have a cron job that generates 20 picks twice a week before each Mega Millions (US) draw.

I never buy these numbers -- the script just saves them in a Google Doc so there's evidence of the numbers and the timestamp when they were chosen.

Then after the draw, it checks them against the winning numbers, and emails me the results.

Now twice a week I get the (small) psychological benefit of realizing I didn't waste $40.

Maybe the opposite of Buyers Remorse is "Decliners Delight".

Re: You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

#47

Post by beAbU »

acomjean wrote: post #14
forinti wrote: post #4

Not a "win" in the financial aspect of the game: "... they matched just two balls on three of the tickets, the reward being three lucky dip tries on a subsequent lottery, each of which came to nothing. Since a ticket costs £2, the experiment represented a loss to the authors of £54. This unfortunate incident therefore serves both as a verification of our result and of the principle that one should expect to lose mone…

When I was young I had a friend who bought one Massachusetts (US) lottery ticket a week. I remember he "won" (basically got his money back). When he went to cash out the cashier asked him, "do you want the money.. or another ticket". He took the another ticket and promptly lost. lesson learned. You can't win if you don't play, but 2 tickets doesn't increase your odds significantly. Where I worked there was a convenie…

In your friend's case he increased his odds by 0. New ticket means a new game probably, so any prior winnings does not factor in the next game. He did increase his odds of losing everything significantly!

The rational thing to do is not play again. I'm sure someone can model this with game theory or probability math for us.

Re: You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

#48

Post by sambapa »

panarky wrote: post #46
mlyle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, spending a few bucks per week isn't necessarily irrational. The hope and entertainment has some value. And, of course, the marginal value of a couple bucks more in your pocket may be nil, but the life-changing experience of a win may have considerably more value; that is, marginal utility may not just flow smoothly downwards.

> isn't necessarily irrational I used to say this to justify buying 20 tickets twice a week. It's not irrational I can afford it, right? And the purchase gives me the psychological reward of dreaming about a big win. But then after every draw I'd check my numbers and suffer a twinge of buyer's remorse. For me, that (small) regret more than offset any positive psychological benefit. It was a minor addiction that did m…

Wow, I hope that this cron job won't win anything significant. Imagine the remorse of nut buying those lucky numbers!

Re: You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

#49

Post by CodeSgt »

panarky wrote: post #46
mlyle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, spending a few bucks per week isn't necessarily irrational. The hope and entertainment has some value. And, of course, the marginal value of a couple bucks more in your pocket may be nil, but the life-changing experience of a win may have considerably more value; that is, marginal utility may not just flow smoothly downwards.

> isn't necessarily irrational I used to say this to justify buying 20 tickets twice a week. It's not irrational I can afford it, right? And the purchase gives me the psychological reward of dreaming about a big win. But then after every draw I'd check my numbers and suffer a twinge of buyer's remorse. For me, that (small) regret more than offset any positive psychological benefit. It was a minor addiction that did m…

Anything in excess is bad. Having a couple drinks throughout your week is fine, going on a bender and downing 20 drinks one night per week isn’t.

Having a snickers bar is fine if you make it a rare reward, eating several every day isn’t.

Etc etc etc.

Re: You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

#50

Post by acomjean »

itsoktocry wrote: post #35
acomjean wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was young I had a friend who bought one Massachusetts (US) lottery ticket a week. I remember he "won" (basically got his money back). When he went to cash out the cashier asked him, "do you want the money.. or another ticket". He took the another ticket and promptly lost. lesson learned. You can't win if you don't play, but 2 tickets doesn't increase your odds significantly. Where I worked there was a convenie…

> She turned, shook her head and said "I know what they've spent... its not a lot." and proceeded into a mini tirade against gambling, which she promptly stopped when a customer entered the store. Its profitiable. Curious, but was this surprising to you? These games are literally all designed to take in money and pay out a portion of it. They have to be profitable.

I was surprised the payouts from a small convenience store were so high. And the spending were so high. I'm a very infrequent gambler..

When I was at IBM one of the mathemeticians had a bumper sticker on his office door. “the lottery: a tax on people who are bad at math.” or some such thing. I took it to heart.

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