Powerball is $500M, are u playing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottery_mathematics

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Camwi said:
Yeah, I just didn't know if the odds changed somehow based on the odds of the same numbers getting drawn twice over time. For some reason, in my head that feels like one of those things that might be true using higher math than I ever learned.
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In a random drawing, no combination is any more or less likely than another, regardless of the combination's own history or randomness. Play the same numbers as the prior week's winner, or play some other set. Do this every drawing until the end of your natural life. You have the same odds either way, which is to say none at all.
 
ColdPizza said:
I believe they added more numbers so the odds are even worse, 1 in 292 million
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So what's the expected value of a $2 lottery ticket? That's the most crucial piece of information.

A naive calculation would be odds of the jackpot divided by total value ($1.71), but that would be increased because you win for a partial match, and also decreased because there's a chance you'd have to split the jackpot with other winning tickets.
 
SolidusDave said:
I played most of my life! 50 years and now I'm retired. Every time I used my lucky numbers, the day my beautiful but bitchy wife Loise died. The Powerball number is the number of her severed limbs.
In the end I paid $9,699 of additional taxes. You're welcome.
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Uhhh.... what?!
 
ColdPizza said:
I believe they added more numbers so the odds are even worse, 1 in 292 million
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Randolph Freelander said:
In a random drawing, no combination is any more or less likely than another, regardless of the combination's own history or randomness. Play the same numbers as the prior week's winner, or play some other set. Do this every drawing until the end of your natural life. You have the same odds either way, which is to say none at all.
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There are probably numbers that you are more or less likely to share with other people though, which would suck.
 
aspiegamer said:
On a more serious note, I know there's always a lot of commentary on how lotteries are essentially an "idiot tax" and a laughable way to waste money. As a physical object, perhaps, but if for $1 or $2 someone can be a little happy daydreaming about what they'd do with the money to crawl out of their depressing life, I consider that worth the money. Hell, the average person can be happy daydreaming about winning a damn $100 prize.Exactly!
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I'm sorry but why in the world would any rational person pay $2 to daydream. I've daydreamed about what I'd spend a near infinite amount if money on in the past and guess what? I did so for free. If you want to daydream then go do so, it is free. If you want to become absurdly rich then go start a buissness, your chances are absurdly low but they are much better than the lottery.
 
linkandzelda said:
I'm sorry but why in the world would any rational persin pay $2 to daydream. I've daydreamed about what I'd spend a near infinite amount if money on in the past and guess what, I did for free.
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Because this is the only situation where that daydream could actually become a reality?

It's actually the MOST rational time to daydream about spending $500 Million, because it's the only time when the vast majority of people would have the ability to get that kind of money.
 
Every lotto thread. Im sure everyone understands the chance is next to nothing. I've spend $2 on worse
 
Zen_Arcade said:
Because this is the only situation where that daydream could actually become a reality?

It's actually the MOST rational time to daydream about spending $500 Million, because it's the only time when the vast majority of people would have the ability to get that kind of money.
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No it is not. The rational thing to do is to calculate the expected value of your investment and, if the expected value is greater than your investment then buy the ticket, else do not buy the ticket.

The expected value is lower therefore you should not buy the ticket.
 
I agree spending $2 on a chance to dream, but spending more than that is just pointless. Before I bought my ticket, the guy in front of me dropped $100 on quick picks.
 
linkandzelda said:
1 in 292,000,000 is no chance. If you accounted for chances that low in everyday life then you would get nothing done.
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What are you even talking about? It's not like people who buy lottery tickets sit in a chair all day daydreaming about money while never doing anything else with their time.

I don't know about you, but I can multi task.

You're daydreaming about money you have a zero chance of getting while trying to put down people who daydream about money actually have a small chance of getting.
linkandzelda said:
No it is not. The rational thing to do is to calculate the expected value of your investment and, if the expected value is greater than your investment then buy the ticket, else do not buy the ticket.

The expected value is lower therefore you should not buy the ticket.
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None of what you're saying has anything to do with what I said. You were claiming that it's irrational to daydream about getting $500 Million during the only opportunity people have at ever getting that type of money.

I never said anything about the rationality of actually buying the ticket. You probably have pretty boring dreams if all you ever dream about are things that are completely rational.
 
linkandzelda said:
1 in 292,000,000 is no chance. If you accounted for chances that low in everyday life then you would get nothing done.
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No, a 0 in 292,000,000 chance is no chance. For proof of a 1 in 292,000,000 chance being possible, see: all Powerball lottery winners ever. The group is small, for sure, but it isn't 0.
 
Zen_Arcade said:
What are you even talking about? It's not like people who buy lottery tickets sit in a chair all day daydreaming about money while never doing anything else with their time.

I don't know about you, but I can multi task.

You're daydreaming about money you have a zero chance of getting while trying to put down people who daydream about money actually have a small chance of getting.
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I don't think you understand. The chance of winning the lottery is so negligible that the $2 you spend is worth more than that chance that you win tge lottery therefore it is you that is wasting more value as you waste the majority of your $2 and the time spent daydreaming whereas my past self only wasted the time spend daydreaming.
 
linkandzelda said:
1 in 292,000,000 is no chance. If you accounted for chances that low in everyday life then you would get nothing done.
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It's 1 in 290,000,000 to win the jackpot but 1 in 40 to win $4. So please shut up and stop pissing on everyone's parade. While you're at it, go to a church on a Sunday morning and tell everyone they're wasting their time.

No one here expects to win $200 million dollars. But for every person that's won any money in any lottery, I'm sure they had one friend like you who told them not to waste their money :p
 
linkandzelda said:
I don't think you understand. The chance of winning the lottery is so negligible that the $2 you spend is worth more than that chance that you win tge lottery therefore it is you that is wasting more value as you waste the majority of your $2 and the time spent daydreaming whereas my past self only wasted the time spend daydreaming.
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I'm sorry that your life is so bad that you can't spend $2 at what is possibly your only chance at winning millions upon millions of dollars.

$2 is literally nothing. $2 is worth way more going towards the possibility, no matter how small, that I could win $500 Million than the $2 ever could be.
 
I don't know what the going rate is on a couple of hours of hope, but $2 doesn't seem too shabby.

It's the habit of unaffordable ongoing gambling that is depressing. A couple of dollars to challenge probability isn't too bad.
 
I'm unsure why everyone has such a problem applying basic maths that the majority of lottery advocates know to the lottery but whatever it is only your loss and the state's win in the end.
 
linkandzelda said:
I'm unsure why everyone has such a problem applying basic maths that the majority of lottery advocates know to the lottery but whatever it is only your loss and the state's win in the end.
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Yep, basic math. Last Powerball had a winner, and the one before, and the one before. So 100% chance that someone eventually fucking wins. Pretty simple.
 
I love it at work when people go on about the lottery being 50 million or something so they're getting tickets (for a quid or two) because why bother when it's only 5 million.
 
Pinkuss said:
I love it at work when people go on about the lottery being 50 million or something so they're getting tickets (for a quid or two) because why bother when it's only 5 million.
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It is a way of easily restricting how often you play the nearly pointless game.
 
Yaboosh said:
It is a way of easily restricting how often you play the nearly pointless game.
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Make sense; everyone just seems so excited. I've just worked how much I'll earn in the rest of my working days and it's less than 1 million GBP and the lottery is regularly above that (assuming inflation doesn't go crazy).
 
Zen_Arcade said:
What are you even talking about? It's not like people who buy lottery tickets sit in a chair all day daydreaming about money while never doing anything else with their time.

I don't know about you, but I can multi task.

You're daydreaming about money you have a zero chance of getting while trying to put down people who daydream about money actually have a small chance of getting.
None of what you're saying has anything to do with what I said. You were claiming that it's irrational to daydream about getting $500 Million during the only opportunity people have at ever getting that type of money.

I never said anything about the rationality of actually buying the ticket. You probably have pretty boring dreams if all you ever dream about are things that are completely rational.
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I do not daydream about having lots of money. I did so eight years ago. I agree that was irrational but I am saying that it would have been even more irrational to put down $2 for a negligible chance.

Err, no rationality is a method to achieve goals not goals in and of themselves, you cannot have goals which are rational. You can apply rationality to any set of goals though, so sure there might be some goals where it would be rational to buy lottery tickets but if getting more money is one of your goals then the lottery is completely irrational.

Also I'm not going to reply to this thread further because I just am wasting time.
 
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