When buying lottery makes sense,

[sdduuuude]

[quote=pri_dk]A while back there was a group of quant traders who would monitor the various lotteries around the world and make large bets on certain days, often traveling to other countries, when the expected return was positive.[/quote]

That’s awesome.

[poorgradstudent]

My mother-in-law has a better job these days, but at her previous job when she had a bad day she would go to the 7-11 and buy a lotto ticket. Just imagining what life would be like if she won and could quit her job made her feel better and gave her peace of mind.

I’d call that $1 well spent. Heck, I routinely spend $2 to get a similar sense of happiness from a sugar soda!

[8bitnintendo]

[quote=moneymaker]I’m going to buy 20 quick picks and 20 self picked tickets and will report the results Saturday morning.[/quote]
Statistically speaking, unless your self-picked tickets are deliberately targeted towards unpopular numbers, you’d be better off going with mostly or exclusively quick picks due to the decreased likelihood of having to share the prize. If all numbers are equally likely to be drawn, numbers selected by fewer people have a higher expected value.

People tend to choose numbers below 30-31 (for birthdays), 7, 11, multiples of 7 and 11, numbers in the middle columns of the selection form, etc.

If your self picked tickets are more about the hedonic value of knowing your “lucky” numbers are part of your ticket pool, obviously this may not apply…

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

[quote=sdduuuude]Considering multiple winners of the same prize is important. When the prize gets bigger, more people play. If the number of people playing doubles, it effectively cuts your expected winnings in half.

Even using the 1/176,000,000 figure, you have to include the probability of sharing the prize in your expected value calculation or it’s a bad calculation.

If your expected value was positive, those running it wouldn’t be able to make any money, now would they ?[/quote]

The expected value over time is not positive. It is considerably less than 1 (something like .4 or .5 since half the income from lotteries are paid out in prizes_). However, the expected value for any given drawing, may occasionally be positive on rare occasions.

[Diego Mamani]

Walterwhite and sdrealtor have it right. Lotteries are essentially a tax for math-impaired sheeple.

[svelte]

[quote=poorgradstudent]My mother-in-law has a better job these days, but at her previous job when she had a bad day she would go to the 7-11 and buy a lotto ticket. Just imagining what life would be like if she won and could quit her job made her feel better and gave her peace of mind.

I’d call that $1 well spent. Heck, I routinely spend $2 to get a similar sense of happiness from a sugar soda![/quote]

lol – that’s not a bad way to look at it.

As long as she’s not spending $100 per paycheck.

I’ve probably bought 10 tickets over the past 10 years. My problem is I get equal parts warm fuzzies from imagining winning and repulsive guilt from throwing away money (this part comes in after checking the winning numbers 🙂 ).

[scaredyclassic]

dammit. my kid heard about the lottery on the internet and now wants a ticket. i’ll get one but i told him the money w as just going to screw up our life.

[scaredyclassic]

we’ll have little drive or purpose, work will seem futile, we’ll become paranoid about people being after our money, we’ll need security, we’ll have to hide out, on the other hand, we can play a lot of chess. And devote pretty much all of our time to intensive strength training.

however, if the money really necessary? i just bought the “chesster” kids software and a really nice wood chess set (discounted) from http://www.houseofstaunton.com all for under $100.00….; doubt 500 million would get us a much nicer set or add very much to our happiness.

[The-Shoveler]

WW
I think that attitude will definitely increase your odds
There are cosmic forces at work always trying to trip us up (Well at least in my experiences).
We will know if you comeback on Monday talking about all the little people in your life and how much you appreciate them.

[Anonymous]

If you view money as a means to get “stuff” you will never have enough.

If view money as freedom, then you may someday have enough. In fact, you probably already do.

[sdrealtor]

So my 85 yr old mother left me a message to go buy her $10 worth of lottery tickets. She has never played the lottery in her life but she had a feeling. I left her a message back saying “If I dont call you Saturday morning assume I won the money and you wont hear from me again. ON the otherhand, If you see my number on caller ID Saturday morning assume I am looking for my $10 back”.

[svelte]

[quote=sdrealtor]So my 85 yr old mother left me a message to go buy her $10 worth of lottery tickets. She has never played the lottery in her life but she had a feeling. I left her a message back saying “If I dont call you Saturday morning assume I won the money and you wont hear from me again. ON the otherhand, If you see my number on caller ID Saturday morning assume I am looking for my $10 back”.[/quote]

lol!

[sdduuuude]

Q: Why doesn’t a wealthy person buy every number for $175 million and ensure themselves a $500 million return ?

A: Because if two others get the same idea, then would have three people paying $170 million but they would only win 500/3 = 166.67 million each.

Guaranteed to lose money.

Just an example of how multiple winners changes the odds, and judging by the crazy people in my office and sdr’s mom, there’s gonna be a few more hands in the pot.

[scaredyclassic]

Man I hope I don’t win.

Sdrealtors admission here will be bad for him during grammas lawsuit.

Always remember never admit anything.

[moneymaker]

It will definitely get crazy if nobody wins this time! With around 188M tickets purchased last time I’m sure it will be more this time.

[Author]

Posts