A guy who writes a financial blog went out last week and spent $100 on scratch lottery tickets, something I have wanted to do for a long time. He made...are your ready??
$38.00
That's all.
Well a fellow blogger wrote this as to why he only won $38.00:
Why? Mathematics. The more tickets you buy, the more likely you are to come close to the mathematical odds that were set forth in the game. There are two extremes. If you buy one ticket, you either win 100% of the time, or you lose 100% of the time. That’s one extreme. If you buy all of the tickets, and if the odds of winning are 1:4.21, or 23.75%, then you’ll win 23.75% of the time. That’s the other extreme.
J bought 100 tickets, and he had 20 winning tickets out of 100, or 20%. That’s not that far off from 23.75%. Had he gone all out and spent his yearly entertainment budget of $1200 (assuming $100/month), his win percentage would likely have been within a percent of the actual odds.
“Well, one of those tickets could have been a big winner, MBH.” Absolutely right. But not likely!
Let’s take ‘Tis The Season, one of the games J played. I’ll assume that the 1:4.21 odds apply to this game (they may not). The Maryland Lottery page shows the number of unclaimed prizes. Here are the numbers as of right now:
$1,000 – 16
$500 – 316
$100 – 567
$50 – 741
$12 – 7,592
$6 – 33,176
$3 – 57,130
$2 – 191,098
$1 – 270,869
Just as you’d expect: There are a lot more smaller prizes than big ones remaining. But let’s add another row to these numbers:
$1,000 – 16
$500 – 316
$100 – 567
$50 – 741
$12 – 7,592
$6 – 33,176
$3 – 57,130
$2 – 191,098
$1 – 270,869
$0 – 1,802,431 (est.)
I took the number of unclaimed prizes (561,505) and multiplied that sum by 3.21 (4.21 – 1) to estimate the number of non-winning tickets. The majority of tickets are in that last (unwritten) line.
Playing the lottery long-term is a money-loser. It will eat your lunch without question.
$38.00
That's all.
Well a fellow blogger wrote this as to why he only won $38.00:
Why? Mathematics. The more tickets you buy, the more likely you are to come close to the mathematical odds that were set forth in the game. There are two extremes. If you buy one ticket, you either win 100% of the time, or you lose 100% of the time. That’s one extreme. If you buy all of the tickets, and if the odds of winning are 1:4.21, or 23.75%, then you’ll win 23.75% of the time. That’s the other extreme.
J bought 100 tickets, and he had 20 winning tickets out of 100, or 20%. That’s not that far off from 23.75%. Had he gone all out and spent his yearly entertainment budget of $1200 (assuming $100/month), his win percentage would likely have been within a percent of the actual odds.
“Well, one of those tickets could have been a big winner, MBH.” Absolutely right. But not likely!
Let’s take ‘Tis The Season, one of the games J played. I’ll assume that the 1:4.21 odds apply to this game (they may not). The Maryland Lottery page shows the number of unclaimed prizes. Here are the numbers as of right now:
$1,000 – 16
$500 – 316
$100 – 567
$50 – 741
$12 – 7,592
$6 – 33,176
$3 – 57,130
$2 – 191,098
$1 – 270,869
Just as you’d expect: There are a lot more smaller prizes than big ones remaining. But let’s add another row to these numbers:
$1,000 – 16
$500 – 316
$100 – 567
$50 – 741
$12 – 7,592
$6 – 33,176
$3 – 57,130
$2 – 191,098
$1 – 270,869
$0 – 1,802,431 (est.)
I took the number of unclaimed prizes (561,505) and multiplied that sum by 3.21 (4.21 – 1) to estimate the number of non-winning tickets. The majority of tickets are in that last (unwritten) line.
Playing the lottery long-term is a money-loser. It will eat your lunch without question.
The guy who did this also wrote that it actually became work doing all the scratching after a while and more depressing.
Oh, hell, I'd still like to do it. Sounds fun. Will I? Most likely, no.
I love fun with math. If only I were better at it.
ReplyDelete