Bloggin it up

Lottery... Lucky man wins 54,000,000 dollars... 89,999,999 others disappointed

Ah the lottery, its just like going to the casino.

Why play a game where the statistics say that you will pay more money than you will receive.

Sure you MAY win 54mil, the offer alone is enough to blind you with the possibilities, that is a really big number.

But NINETY million tickets were sold. Sure if you bought every possible combination and won you would come out with a net gain, but ONLY if someone else didn't win. With 90Mil tickets sold it is VERY possible that 2 people will win if not THREE.
Leaving you with a HUUUUGE debt that doubles, triples, nay quadruples the possible net gain.

You can't beat the system without cheating. I think the possible ticket combinations sit somewhere in the range of 20Mil (I have not calculated it).

I would much prefer to be on the casino side of gambling. Where the question is not will I get lucky and win today, but how much money will I win today, a little or a lot.

If you want to gamble, play Texas holdem with friends, ignoring skill, your odds there are dead even, 5 guys 1 pot, you have a 1/5 chance of getting 5x your money.

Much much better odds.

That was quite the rant.. how unlike me...

UPDATE- I had to figure out the net gain after buying all possible combinations.

1 in 13,983,816 = odds of winning the grand prize
Therefore 13,983,816 different combinations (lower than I thought)
$27,967,632 to buy every combination. (Is there tax on a $2 lotto ticket??)
$54,294,712 Grand Prize
$26,327,080 Net Gain with no other winners.
$820,276 Net Loss with one other winner (keep in mind tax / hidden fees that I am unaware of)
$9,869,394 Net Loss with 2 other winners
That blows my quadruple net loss theory out of the water... interesting.

I love it I found this quote on http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=canada_home&articleID=2065407

"You think about what you'd do with the money and the freedom it would give you," said Beyerstein, who calls lotteries a "tax on people who can't do arithmetic," even if they do nevertheless provoke strong emotions in people.

posted by Matt @ 12:12 AM