This Lottery Business

Your chance of winning is always 292.2 million to one, no matter how many tickets you buy. Even if you bought all 292.2 million possible combinations.

-J.

Go Big or Go Home.

For all but a minute sliver of a per cent the simple rule of gambling is the more you play the more you lose.

Your chance of winning is always 292.2 million to one, no matter how many tickets you buy

Jon,
Each ticket has a one in 292.2 million chance of winning. If you bought two tickets your chances of winning the Powerball lottery would be two in 292.2 million, or one in 146.1 million. So if you buy two tickets, you do double your chances of winning.

If you could somehow manage to purchase a ticket for every single 292.2 million possible combination of numbers, you would win because one of your 292.2 million tickets would have the matching numbers. That’s not to say that there might not be another or maybe a couple of other matching tickets sold.

Boone

You’re right boone, each ticket would have to be a different combination.

So………….

If someone out there has $300 million in liquid assets to run to a gas station, wouldn’t you think they could buy one of each combination? That’d be a lot of money to spend but if they did in fact get one of each combination they’d have much more than that $300 million in the bank.

nhamm wrote:

eep it on a much smaller scale, that way you have heck 10,20, 50x more winners with that much more money getting spent locally.

The lottery has tried this various times and failed. Players want huge jackpots. No fun winning a measly million only to have 1/2 taken in taxes….

The current jackpot is exactly what players want and the lottery loves the free publicity.

-J.

Dan wrote:

You’re right boone, each ticket would have to be a different combination.

So………….

If someone out there has $300 million in liquid assets to run to a gas station, wouldn’t you think they could buy one of each combination? That’d be a lot of money to spend but if they did in fact get one of each combination they’d have much more than that $300 million in the bank.

Not so fast….

Could you game the system and guarantee yourself a $1.4 billion Powerball jackpot?

Here’s the theory: At $2 a ticket and 1 in 292 million odds, you could seemingly buy every Powerball combination for “just” $584 million — and still walk away with a massive profit.

The lump-sum jackpot payment is estimated to be about $868 million. That alone would give you a handsome $284 million profit if you bought every ticket. And since there are $92 million in lower-tier prizes, you’d win all of those too. And by flooding the system with all those tickets you purchased, the lump-sum value of the jackpot would rise by $200 million — which you’d be guaranteed to get back.

That’s a grand total of $1.2 billion in winnings, $576 million of which would be profit.

The best part: You can deduct the value of your gambling losses up to the amount of your winnings. So all but two bucks of what you spent on tickets would be tax-deductible. Effectively that deduction means you’d wipe out any federal taxes owed on the first $584 million of your winnings.

But don’t head over to the ATM to withdraw $584 million. There are two big holes in this theory.

1) You probably would have to share the ticket

There were 440 million tickets sold during the previous drawing. Though there will probably be more tickets sold this time around, let’s assume for the moment that Wednesday’s drawing attracts the same amount of interest as the last one.

By buying every combination, you’d guarantee yourself a victory, but you’d have just a 22% chance of buying the only winning ticket and keeping that jackpot all to yourself, according to Victor Matheson, professor of economics and accounting at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts.

You’d have a better chance (33%) of sharing with one other person or even two other people (25%). You’d also have a 12% chance of sharing it with three people and a 6% chance of splitting your winnings with four others.

All it would take is one other winner to make your $584 million investment unprofitable.

Don’t let the fact that there were no winners during the last drawing fool you. That was unusual, given the amount of interest. With 440 million tickets sold, there was a little more than a 77% chance that at least one person would have won the Powerball last week, Matheson said.

2) You couldn’t possibly buy that many lottery tickets

You have to buy Powerball tickets in person. That’s a lot of transactions.

If you were able to buy one ticket every second, it would still take you more than nine years to buy every combination. And that’s optimistic: You have to ensure that you buy every number just once — not just 292 million quick-picks.

Even if you could deploy an army of people to buy all those tickets for you, it’s still extremely unlikely that you’d be able to buy every ticket.

“Think about how many lottery ticket stations there are nationwide and how busy they’ve been, running nonstop over the past three days,” said Matheson. “Even still, they were only able to sell 440 million tickets.”

Buying every lottery combination has actually been tried once.

In February 1992, an Australian consortium tried to corner a $24 million Virginia Lotto jackpot. But the group was only able to purchase 2.4 million of the 7 million combinations before time ran out.

So though it’s technically feasible to guarantee yourself a lottery victory, realistically, it’s not.
CNNMoney (New York) First published January 11, 2016: 11:59 AM ET

boone wrote:

Each ticket has a one in 292.2 million chance of winning. If you bought two tickets your chances of winning the Powerball lottery would be two in 292.2 million, or one in 146.1 million. So if you buy two tickets, you do double your chances of winning.

Boone, that’s not how the math works…

-J.

Alright Jon you talked me out of it.

Brian Klawitter wrote:

Go Big or Go Home.

If I win the lottery, I’m buying Mike W a new boat.

-J.

But not me Jon??

Now don’t forget the state and federal taxes!

Federal on 1 Billion…
Lump Sum :
(approx) take home $620,000,000,000,000.00 / Taxes >$374,480,000,000,000.00 (after 39.6% federal tax)

7.25% MN or if you’re lucky enough to live in WI 7.80%.

Hardly enough to my both of us a boat and for you to live comfortably in the style you are accustom to.

Jon Jordan wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>boone wrote:</div>
Each ticket has a one in 292.2 million chance of winning. If you bought two tickets your chances of winning the Powerball lottery would be two in 292.2 million, or one in 146.1 million. So if you buy two tickets, you do double your chances of winning.

Boone, that’s not how the math works…

-J.

That’s because this isn’t a RAFFLE, where somebody is going to win. It’s a lottery, where no one is guaranteed to win.

And you also have to assume that this is an honest venture, which I don’t. Besides the normal crooked human greed around this kind of money, I think the whole lottery deal is rigged from the start. The vast majority of people in Minnesota live in the seven county metro area or Duluth or Rochester. The people who actually buy winning lottery tickets always live in some small town in the middle of no where. That doesn’t seem reasonable.

SR

mossydan wrote:

Hey Sharon just watch your office win, and you stayed out, think of all the good that could be done with just half of that, spend $20 bucks and go for it, maybe it will be 2.5 billion by the time the drawing comes.

You should ask the couple of people at Sergenio’s here in WI what they think now about NOT chipping in the few bucks…..after the majority of the employees quit when they won.

Most people that win big lotteries go broke. My accountant works for a guy that won a huge lottery and I’ve heard the pros/cons from him. Best thing to do is start a foundation and have employees give your money away for you. The further your removed, the better. Also, everyone wants to sue you for something

Brian Klawitter wrote:

But not me Jon??

Ok, one for you to BK.

-J.

My favorite all time winning the lottery story….

How Did 110 People Win The Same Lottery?

The odds to win the lottery are astronomical. For 2 people to win the same lottery isn’t unheard of, but it is uncommon. So what about 110 people? You might be thinking it’s impossible, but it did happen. How did 110 lucky individuals all win the same lottery?

The odds of getting struck by lightning for an average person living in the U.S are 1 in 750,000. The odds of winning the lottery are even higher. For this particular lotto, those odds were more than triple a lightning strike — 1 in 3 million. If the odds were so high, how did 110 people manage to pick the same winning numbers? Was it fraud or was the system rigged?
Fortune Smiled Upon Them

No fraud was involved. It was all thanks to a simple fortune cookie confection that are commonly given out American Chinese restaurants.

When the results began coming in from the 2005 March 30th lotto drawing, lottery officials believed a massive fraud was underway. While there had been only one winner of the $13.8 million jackpot, a record 110 players were claiming the runner-up prizes of either $100,000 or $500,000 (depending on if they paid a dollar extra for the bonus power play ball).

After some investigation, the lotto officials found no fraud involved and paid the claimants. They found that the winners had played the numbers (22, 28, 32, 33 and 39) they had recently received from a fortune cookie made by Wonton Food Inc. The company produces 4 million cookies a day branded under different brands. That is how those lucky numbers ended up in so many people’s minds.

gordonk wrote:

If you buy one ticket, you have a one in 292 million chance. Buying ten improves that to a one in 29.2 million chance. You gotta like those odds.

No. You will have a 10 in 292.2 million chance of winning. You don’t improve odds by buying more tickets.

-J.

School me… if I buy all 292 million chances of all different number combos, does this not make my chances 1 in 1, by default ? I am not talking about profit, I am talking strictly about “my” odds of winning… saying 10 in 292 million is not better odds than 1 in 292 million, does not make sense to me…. ? Like I said, school me, I am not above learning… I hope

Wouldn’t every ticket you buy, drive your odds up by making 1 in 292 million, 2 tickets would make it 1 in 291,999,999 ? and so on ? driving up your odds…

Jon Jordan wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Brian Klawitter wrote:</div>
Go Big or Go Home.

If I win the lottery, I’m buying Mike W a new boat.

-J.

And I will take that boat.

Just to pass on the good deed Ill give my old boat to Sharron.

Supposing that I wanted to buy a ticket, I’d just be upset that a new billionaire had $2 of my money.

I totally understand your statements/issues. I work in aspen CO on Multi Million and Billionaires’ homes (multiples) not to say that if won that is where I would be headed, but I do think that a lot of family members/some good friends would be considering retirement . I might buy a new boat although I sure do like my MX 2025.

gordonk wrote:

If you buy one ticket, you have a one in 292 million chance. Buying ten improves that to a one in 29.2 million chance. You gotta like those odds.

No. You will have a 10 in 292.2 million chance of winning. You don’t improve odds by buying more tickets.

Jon,

Math is fun! 10 chances are better than 1 chance. So that does improve your odds. It’s true, each ticket only has one combination of numbers out of a possible 292 million combinations of numbers. But by purchasing 10 tickets, you now have 10 chance. So it’s 10 out of 292 million or simplifying fractions it’s 1 out of 29.2 million.

For example, let’s assume the Vikings had just 1 chance or 10 chances to kick a potentially game-winning field goal with 22 seconds left in regulation in yesterdays loss to Seattle. Do you think they’d still have loss they had 10 chances to make that field goal? I bet Bridgewater could make 1 out of 10 from 27 yards. So more chances improves ones odds of winning.

If you win I’d like a tricked-out, big pontoon, huge motor, two stories, etc. for summer fun in the sun. Thanks.

Boone

I think it’s funny how people get excited when the jackpot is built up. You have the same “chance” of winning when it resets and its no small amount.

The problem with office pools is your obligated to play. Despite the risk being basically no risk, you don’t want to be that person.

I prefer the smaller lottery. Down here its fantasy 5 and you have a 1 in 300,000 chance of winning. Jackpot is a little under $200k. If no one hits it it rolls down so players who got 4-5 split it.

Why not just buy a bunch of tickets with the same numbers, so if you win you win like twenty times with those same tickets.

This is a solid idea Stryker. Let me know how it works out.

I’m pretty sure this is correct.

Okay, I am not the big mathematician that can give you the actual equations but even though 1 in 292.2 million is the single number combination ticket chances of winning, 10 different number combination tickets does not work out to 1 in 29.22 million. However the odds do not stay at 1 in 292.2 million like mention and do get better. It is just not that drastic as each ticket has its own odds against the numbers that are left.
Assuming each ticket has unique numbers:
1 ticket = 1 in 292.2 combinations
2 tickets = 1 in (292.2 million minus the first ticket combination)
3 tickets = 1 in (292.2 million minus the first 2 ticket combinations)
4 tickets = 1 in (292.2 million minus the first 3 tickets combinations)
and so on.

It is a combinatorial probability problem and I’ll leave it to someone with a mathematician in the family to find out what 10 tickets out of 292.2 million works out to as far as odds are. However once all 292.2 million combinations are bought, the probability of winning is like 1 in 1 for that last ticket or something like that. Any statisticians out there?

SuperDave1959 wrote:

Supposing that I wanted to buy a ticket, I’d just be upset that a new billionaire had $2 of my money.

Qoute of the week

I’m so dizzy from reading all this… What u guys talking about again??

Chances and odds are two different things. If you don’t play you have no chance. Whatever the number is in the amount of tickets sold your odds go up with the more tickets you buy. If you buy just one ticket you have only one chance in how many tickets are sold and that’s your odds, lets say 1 in 35 million tickets, you have a 1 in 35 million chance to win. If you buy two tickets you double your odds, not anyone elses odds, and now have two chances to win, one chance from both tickets. Odds are calculated by how many tickets you buy compared to how many tickets are sold to others besides you. The more tickets you buy makes your odds go up, compared to how many other tickets are sold, not to how many people play, that’s a different equation. The more tickets they buy is what makes their odds go up, the more tickets you buy makes your odds go up.

mossydan wrote:

Chances and odds are two different things.

Odds – no matter how many times you flip a coin, the odds are the same for the next flip. I remember that one from school. wink.