National lottery vs Euro Millions

opethdisciple

opethdisciple

opethdisciple

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I'v been playing the Euro lottery for about 1 year now, nothing to excessive one or two liness a week.

However I get the overriding feeling I'm wasting money playing the Euro millions as I feel you have more chance of winning something playing the National Lottery.

Dont you need less numbers to be in the money? Even £10 here and there would be nice...
 
The chances of winning anything on either is remote ... do it if you want to but don't expect to get anything back.

With the normal lottery you need 3 matched numbers to win £10 where as the minimum for the Euromillions is around £2.80 (for 2 + a star (i think)).
 
Think its wiser to switch to the regular lottery, as although max winning are much less, its cheaper and for the same numbers you get more winnings.

And lets be honrest here, if you did get lucky and get all the numbers, and number of x millions would make you over the moon.
 
You have a higher chance of winning something on the Euro Millions. You have a higher chance of winning lots of money on the National Lottery are higher (but still remote).

Look up the odds yourself
 
No one enters the lottery to win £50, you do it for the serious money. The money is more serious in the Euro Millions.
 
Here are the odds for UK Lotto

6 main numbers - 1 in 13,983,816
5 main numbers + Bonus Ball - 1 in 2,330,636
5 main numbers - 1 in 55,492
4 main numbers - 1 in 1,033
3 main numbers - 1 in 57

Here are the Euro
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So you have more chance of winning 'something' on the Euros but there is a better payout to odds ratio on the normal lottery. 1 in 57 lines should net you at least a tenner in Lotto versus 1 in 157 to get potentially near the same amount on the Euromillions.

But both are utterly shocking from an odds point of view and a really stupid way to gamble seriously. Take a typical casino for example, their 'edge' (the edge being the amount they expect to take of all the money betted ) is around 5%. The game of Roulette for example has nearly a 1 in 2 chance of doubling your money with only the green 0 there to provide the edge to the Casino. The lottery however pays out £10 for a 1 in 57 chance, on that prize alone Camelot have an edge of 82.4%!!!

Even with bookies odds the edge is tiny compared to the Lotto, a bookmaker will genuinely have weeks where they end up losing money whereas Camelot will never (almost statistically impossible) lose money and will always make a hefty profit.
 
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Hatter The Mad said:
What does the National Lottery benefit?
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I worded it slightly wrong, as the name suggests the Health Lotto gives money to Health related causes in the UK.

fez said:
No one enters the lottery to win £50, you do it for the serious money. The money is more serious in the Euro Millions.
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That's the minimum you can win top prize is about 100,000 i believe


Just for the record i dont play either, but i do work in a shop which sells them and purely from looking at the odds, i would be inclined to go with the heath lottery
 
Hatter The Mad said:
^ but like many others, you miss the point that you have no chance of winning millions in a casino with a £1 lay.
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I'm not missing any point, I understand what the lottery is and I understand people are playing it for "the dream" and the odd quid here and there is fine.

But the OP is asking about odds and what would be more profitable in general in which case you shouldn't play either.

Furthermore, you would have a far better chance of turning a £1 into a million quid in a Casino than by playing lottery. By simply betting on red or black at Roulette for example, starting with £1 and putting your entire winnings back on each time 21 straight wins would net you over a million at odds of just over 1 in 2 million (compared to 1 in 14 million for Lotto).

* In reality betting limits are in place at many casinos so would prevent you doing so, but you get the point.
 
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You're not including the millionaire raffle in the euromillions calculations though?
 
khevolution said:
here is another questions, whats gives better odd in the draw, choosing your own numbers or a lucky dip?
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Not sure if serious....

But just in case the odds are exactly the same, as is picking 1,2,3,4,5,6 as your numbers. Any set of numbers has the same chance as coming up as any other.

A lot of people commit the gambling fallacy of thinking sticking to the same numbers every week gives them a better chance over the long term but in reality it gives you no better odds than doing a lucky dip every week.

PiKe said:
You're not including the millionaire raffle in the euromillions calculations though?
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I was comparing to the UK lotto, hence why I used the 1 in 14 million figure as opposed to the 1 in 117 million chance of winning the Euro Millions, adding in the raffle doesn't really help that much.
 
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estebanrey said:
Not sure if serious....

But just in case the odds are exactly the same, as is picking 1,2,3,4,5,6 as your numbers. Any set of numbers has the same chance as coming up as any other.



I was comparing to the UK lotto, hence why I used the 1 in 14 million figure as opposed to the 1 in 117 million chance of winning the Euro Millions, adding in the raffle doesn't really help that much.
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was a serious question, what i meant was on a week to week basis. whether you would have better odds of winner more having different numbers every week or just keeping the numbers the same every week
 
I updated my post to cover that. The odds are exactly the same.

The notion you have more chance by sticking my the same numbers is based on something called the gambler's fallacy, which is basically the thought that you only get so much bad luck and because your numbers haven't come up before it must mean you have more chance of them coming up in the future.

In reality though, any set of numbers has the same chance of coming up on any given draw so this week's Euro numbers for example are just as likely to be exactly the same as last week as they are to be 1,2,3,4,5,6 or your one line of numbers that may never have come up before.
 
khevolution said:
Cheers for that, had always wondered if there was an actual stat or not
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Yeah well statistically the chances of hitting jackpot on the UK Lotto for 1 line is 1 in 14 million on any given draw. This statistic is not affected in any way by past results.

For your chances to increase by sticking with the same numbers then statistically the odds would have to drop on each draw which they don't.

I think why a lot of people stick by the same numbers though isn't so much they think they have more chance of winning but are scared that "it will be just their luck" that as soon as they change their numbers their old set will come out and they'd feel gutted.

When I do play the Lotto I do lucky dip, I check the numbers then chuck the ticket away. If a set of numbers have come up that I once had it the past I couldn't even tell you because I don't remember my lines. That way I avoid the potential devastation mentioned above and I save myself 5 minutes in the shop not having to visit that little booth thing. :D
 
I used to run a lottery syndicate at work years ago, we put in £625.00 a month and in two years never made our money back, the most we won was £400.00 or so. I used a program that generated 'wheels' - number patterns that gave repeated wins if some of the winning numbers 'hit' that particular wheel. You have to be 'in it to win it' as they say, so just write-off the money you spend and you never know!
I also used to do the Irish lottery via Ladbrokes, and won a lot more on that, just not very much. Quite enjoyable though as you knew a win was never far away!
 
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