Okay, once in a while I don’t mind wasting a couple of bucks on a 6/49 lottery ticket.
I’m not about to waste my time filling out those slips to get “my” numbers, though – so I opt for a “quick pick,” which just assigns six numbers at random.
I bought such a ticket today.
I was somewhat disappointed by the numbers I got:
21 22 23 24 25 26
Now, I know that this is probably in the same neighborhood asf “gambler’s fallacy,” but it seems to me that the distribution leaves a little to be desired. :dubious:
On the bright side, if it’s a winner, the pot isn’t likely to be split very many ways.
Yes, even though I know better, it’s hard not to believe that’s a poor set of numbers, but it is just as likely to come up as any other set selected in advance.
Consider. You can have any one of 49 numbers in the first slot. 21 is just as likely as any other. You can have any one of 48 numbers in the second slot. 22 is just as likely as any other. You can have any one of 47 numbers in the third slot and so on and so on and so on.
And you are right. If it is a winner, you’ll probably have the big prize all to yourself.
I don’t play the lottery until it gets to be worth my time, i.e. 20 million or more. Then I buy 5 tickets all the same numbers. I figure it this way. The chance of winning on any one ticket is virtually infinitesmal. If I bought 5 tickets with different numbers I would have an infinitesmal 5 times as big. BIG DEAL! But if I do win, having 5 tickets will assure me of a substantial fraction of the total and really piss off the other winner(s).
I believe lotteries are a tax on stupid people. I believe buying one ticket in your entire life has statistically equivalent odds of success compared to buying five tickets every week of your life. I believe lotteries are basically pointless and without merit.
However, I love your logic here, and find it impeccable.
Lotteries don’t help fund schools in anything they need, because lottery money is variable and thus can’t be earmarked for required materials.
So lottery money is channelled toward schools in essentially meaningless “fluff” ways. Or so said a 60 Minutes piece, but I’ve been having my doubts about 60 Minutes of late.
Yeah, but every time that I don’t win the oods that I will win next time go up!
Just like every day that you live, the oods of you dying the next day increase.
:dubious: (Now isn’t that a pleasant thought) :dubious:
Not really. In California, you just can’t use lottery monies to fund overhead or building. In our district, it pays for aides, field trips, lab equipment, audiovisual equipment, etc.
The lottery money for schools issue is actually a fairly expansive subject that could be debated either way, so it’s probably OT for this thread. I know virtually nothing about it except what I saw on that segment, so I can’t speak to your reply.
I was going to let this go, but since I’m posting anyway, I might as well respond to:
Well…the Lotto 649 jackpot is $25 million on Wednesday. Canadian dollars–and no tax, paid all at once.
My odds of winning are very, very small.
But frankly, if someone is giving away 25 million, I will take that very, very small chance of winning, and spend 2 bucks over the certainty of not winning by not buing a ticket.
Besides, the harmless thrill of thinking what one might do with that kind of jack is easily worth a lousy $2.
I agree. It’s entertainment. For $1, you can believe for a few hours that you might wake up a multi-millionaire. As long as you look at it that way, and don’t spend too much money on it, it’s not as stupid as all those econogurus say.
Following on from the “It could be you” ads in Ireland, they ran a series of ads that showed obnoxious people saying what they’d buy with the money if they won - an airheaded hippy saying “I’d buy all the horses in Ireland and put them in a big field”, or an already-rich man in a BMW being arrogant - with the tagline “Buy a lotto ticket - or it could be them”.
Which of course is bollocks, since it’s really “buy a lotto ticket and you might have to share your winnings with these assholes”.
If you’d got 1 2 3 4 5 6 you could rightfully feel pissed off, as so many other people pick them (20,000 a week in the UK apparently, although it may be less now, if word has got out that they’d have to share the jackpot with so many other people).
Just for you, I have run your numbers through the Ticket Checker on the UK National Lottery, which is also a 6 from 49 deal.
Your numbers (21 22 23 24 25 26): Total winnings = £310.
Bear in mind that it would have cost £940 to enter every lottery to date, so those “winnings” don’t look so hot. Still, your “rubbish” ticket has done best of the three I checked.
I’m in the entertainment camp, even though I have some training in statistics, and have been known to tell people, “You know, the odds of winning are about the same whether you buy a ticket or not.”
I think the money for schools tends to be a fallacy–it means it just frees up more money for other parts of the govt, doesn’t necessarily mean more money than the schools usually get.
But it is worth a couple bucks on a given day to think, maybe I don’t have to go to work today! It is a cheap way to dream. But then, two bucks a week is my limit, and fairly often I don’t even do that.
The cynical side of me says that the lottery is the state’s way of recouping the taxes that it spends on the poor.
Not to mention the scratch-offs. You know, it must be somebody’s job to design new scratch-offs, the goal of the design is just to encourage poor people to waste their money.
