Lottery Odds

krooton said:
Exactly, so when you change 2 in 14 million to 1 in 7 million, they believe that they are suddenly much more likely to win than they actually are.

Yes, they have double their original chance to win, but they have not halved their original chance to lose.
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I don't think anyone believes they are "much more likely to win". It does double your chance of winning, chance of losing is irrelevant and I think you should put the spade down and stop digging that hole you're in.

EDIT: In response to the OP, it really makes little difference which draws you are in, putting all of your entries in the same draw will make you no more likely to win anything than having single entries in multiple draws. Ideally this is assuming the same odds in each draw but the change will be insignificant either way.
 
krooton said:
Exactly, so when you change 2 in 14 million to 1 in 7 million, they believe that they are suddenly much more likely to win than they actually are.
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Who's they?

I know that if I buy 2 tickets, I'm twice as likely to win as if I only bought one.

Equally I know it's still unlikely.


krooton said:
Yes, they have double their original chance to win, but they have not halved their original chance to lose.
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Why is that relevant? I still don't think you understand.

With one ticket my chance of losing is 13999999 in 14000000, or 13999999/14000000 = 99.99999%.

If I could halve my chance of losing, then I'd suddenly have a more than 50% chance of winning (100%-49.999995%=50.000005%). That would be AMAZING, but surely you're not suggesting that someone really thinks that is true for just buying a second ticket.
 
kaiowas said:
Really? Lets use simple numbers to prove the point....

Lets say that any given ticket for a draw has a 1 in 3 chance of winning and that you wish to buy 2 tickets.

If you bought 2 tickets for the same draw you'd have a 2/3 chance of winning that draw and zero chance of winning the second draw. Total chance of winning something=2/3

If you bought 2 tickets for different draws:
You have a 1/3 chance of winning each draw in isolation
Therefore a 2/3 chance of not winning each draw
You're chances of not winning either of the draws would be 2/3 * 2/3 = 4/9
And you're chances of winning something are therefore 1- 4/9 = 5/9


2/3 = 6/9 which so buying multiple tickets for the same draw gives you a slightly better chance of winning something, this arises due to the fact that by buying tickets for multiple draws you have a very small chance of winning more than once.
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thank you for pointing that out, you are right, it is better to go for all tickets in one lottery than spread them evenly.
doing maths when ive just woken up probably wasnt the smartest thng. however, the rest of my post is right

*edit*
what people arent getting is that doubling your chances of winning doesnt equal halving your chances of losing.

to make the numbers easier, im imagining a new lottery with 100 combinations.

if you buy one ticket, you have a 0.01 chance of winning, and a 0.99 chance of losing
if you buy two tickets you have a 0.02 chance of winning, and a 0.98 chance of winning.

buy buying the second (non duplicate) ticket you have decreased your chances of losing by 0.01. you have also increased your chances of winning by 0.01, giving you a chance of 0.02. this just happens to be double the chance of buying a single ticket
 
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Reaper 392 said:
*edit*
what people arent getting is that doubling your chances of winning doesnt equal halving your chances of losing.
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I disagree with this, as I posted above. No-one thinks that it would half your odds of losing. That would be absurd and would actually mean that buying a 2nd ticket gives you a greater than 50% chance of winning. Clearly no-one thinks that is true.

What people actually don't seem to understand is that buying two tickets DOES double your chances of winning, but just that doubling something very unlikely, still results in a very unlikely outcome.

Having a 0.000002% chance of winning IS double a 0.000001% chance, but it's still not good odds. There is nothing more complicated than that. I really don't get why people are talking about halving the odds of losing.
 
No but statistically it is still better (albeit slightly) to buy 2 weeks for one week rather than one ticket for two weeks.......
 
div0 said:
That would be AMAZING, but surely you're not suggesting that someone really thinks that is true for just buying a second ticket.
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I wouldn't put it past a large chunk of the population tbh, but I am meaning more how joe public perceives their odds.

Purchasing 2 tickets and changing the odds to 1 in 7 million makes it look like there is a substantial increase in their chances of winning, but doubling an already incredibly small chance does nothing of the sort. If their base chance to win was 20%, then doubling their chances to 40% is indeed worthwhile, but increasing 0.00000001% to 0.00000002% mean nothing in real terms.

Buying 256 unique lines can be written as changing your odds from 1 in 14 million to 1 in 54,687, which looks like a MASSIVE shift in your favour.

In reality, you increase your percentage chance from 0.000007% to 0.0018%, a whopping 5 hundredth of a percent.
 
div0 said:
Stuff
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While I agree with you, I can see the confusion it might cause when someone says buying the second ticket takes your odds from 1/14million to 1/7million.

They will see 14million suddenly half to 7million.

Now I appreciate this is incorrect, and you might think it's stupid, but surely you can see how it could confuse someone who doesn't fully understand the numbers.
 
krooton said:
It increases your chance of winning by 0.000007%
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But and the point is this is what the OP asked, it does indeed increase your chances.

IF you are going to do the lottery, better to put it one once a year (pick a week with a big rollover or even better one where if the jackpot isn;t won, its shared out over the next winning band)

In fact, just put it all on once in your life. For example say you were going to place £1 per week, 52 weeks per year for 50 years you would have bought 2600 tickets. It is much better to buy 2600 tickets for one week (assuming you have £2,600 spare). The odds are you will win quite a few smaller prizes and you might even win 5 numbers which would get your money back at least - 1 in 21 chance of that).

In theory, you should win 46 x £10 wins plus 2 x £65 wins and get £590 back but of course you could be really unlucky and still win zero.
 
Panzerbjorn said:
While I agree with you, I can see the confusion it might cause when someone says buying the second ticket takes your odds from 1/14million to 1/7million.

They will see 14million suddenly half to 7million.

Now I appreciate this is incorrect, and you might think it's stupid, but surely you can see how it could confuse someone who doesn't fully understand the numbers.
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It's you that doesn't understand the numbers.

Buying a second different number for the same draw DOES change the odds to 1/7m, why are you failing to understand this?
 
mcast said:
It's you that doesn't understand the numbers.

Buying a second different number for the same draw DOES change the odds to 1/7m, why are you failing to understand this?
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Where does he say it doesn't? I think he is suggesting that suddenly your chances of losing are not suddenly halved.
 
mcast said:
It's you that doesn't understand the numbers.

Buying a second different number for the same draw DOES change the odds to 1/7m, why are you failing to understand this?
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I understand it perfectly thank you very much.

If you read what I wrote, I said that I could understand why some people might get confused, not that I was confused.

I was expressing my disbelief that div0 couldn't appreciate how it might cause confusion to someone who didn't understand the numbers.

:rolleyes:

Maybe you should fix your lack of literacy before berating someone for their lack of numeracy.
 
Panzerbjorn said:
While I agree with you, I can see the confusion it might cause when someone says buying the second ticket takes your odds from 1/14million to 1/7million.

They will see 14million suddenly half to 7million.
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But why is that confusing? The 14 million halves, because the chances of winning have now been doubled.

The only 'confusing' thing here is the difference between a big CHANGE and a big CHANCE.

If you buy 256 tickets then you will see a big CHANGE in your odds of winning. Instead of a 1 in 14 million CHANCE, you now have a 1 in 54,687 CHANCE.

But this really is a big CHANGE in your odds.

Your CHANCE of winning was 0.000007% and it has now CHANGED a lot (increased by 256 times), but the important thing is that now your CHANCE of winning is still only 0.0018%.

Your CHANCES of winning with 256 tickets ARE 'massively' INCREASED, compared to buying just 1 ticket. The problem is that even with that 'massive' increase in your chances, you still only have a very small CHANCE.

Despite my earlier criticism of him, Krotoon does a reasonable job of trying to explain this in his previous few posts.
 
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