Lottery puzzle

[nightmare]

If you knew in advance which numbers were going to be drawn in the Lottery, what would you do, and why ?

[Arti]

If I win, Prude, I'll buy you a pint........or whatever tipple you want ;)

[mungbeanz]

But remember the way the lottery works. only 50p from each ticket goes to the prize fund and only part of that goes to the jackpot fund. If you knew the winning numbers i think that buying 100 tickets would suffice with nightmare's previous information of the 158 record winners taken ino account. This should guarentee you at least 2/3 of the prize, but realistically most of it.

[nightmare]

Oh sh!t !
I have forgotten to take into account all the other non-jackpot payouts, so you would reach breakeven by buying fewer than half the total number of tickets.

[Prudie]

I don't know how the jackpot and smaller prize pay-outs are calculated. As I said it will be quite mathemamtical
I have just discovered the interesting fact that the greatest number of tickets that had to share the UK jackpot was 133. Bummer for them!!

[Prudie]

PS Arti how kind. A G&T in the Maldives please :-)

[mungbeanz]

Here you go;

3 numbers £10 per winner 55.656 to 1
4 numbers 22% of remaining fund 1,031.4 to 1
5 numbers 10% of remaining fund 55,490 to 1
5 numbers and bonus ball 16% of remaining fund 2,330,635 to 1
6 numbers 52% of remaining fund 13,983,815 to 1
The overall odds of winning any prize is 52.655 to 1.

[sidkid]

14th January 1995. 9th lottery draw (Only Saturdays back then) An amazing 133 winners shared the £16.29 million pound jackpot. I don't recall this ever being properly explained. My guess is that many of these were 'lucky dippers' and that the technology for issuing these random lucky dips wasn't as random as perhaps it should have been.......

[Prudie]

I believe I've read that the most popular combination of numbers is 1 to 6 therefore if that ever came up it would have to be shared with a lot of people - kind of defeats the object of using those numbers.

[Postdog]

I read the bit about there being 150 plus winners once I can't recall that, but I do recall reading that there a certain combo's of numbers,which, if they came up, would result in many many winners. How sick would that be to get six numbers, think you are rolling in it, and then find the prize is split with hundreds of others. The combo's were 1,2,3,4, etc

[Arti]

If all the numbers that come up are below 31, there is a greater chance of being more than one winner because a lot of people use birthdays to decide their numbers.
Prude, stop being cheeky. Bognor, maybe ;)

[Arti]

I can't get my head around the fact that the numbers 1 to 6 being the main balls drawn, has the same odds of happening as any combination of balls.

[mungbeanz]

I guess that's why so many people choose it Arti. It does seem strange that it has the same odds, I agree.

[Prudie]

Maybe because it's probably the easiest set to remember.
Arti, come on you've won the lottery - you're coming too right?

[Arti]

Lol, Okay, you win, Prude :( I'll get you a DOUBLE g&t............in Bognor ;)

[nightmare]

Arti,
an explanation of why any set of numbers is equally likely to be drawn:

The sole purpose of the numbers is to uniquely identify and distinguish each ball.
You could have differently coloured balls, for instance. The principle is the same.
It is then obvious that the combination blue, orange, green, yellow, red, pink is no more or less likely to be drawn than silver, black, brown,... etc. or any other.

[sidkid]

Agree about the birthday numbers theory Arti but the numbers that 133 people managed to pick (or have picked for them) on that day back in '95 were......7, 17, 23, 32, 38 and 42. Still they each received £122,510. A nice result, but to see your six numbers come up on a £16m rollover then find out you're sharing with 132 others.......Come on Camelot, its not to late to tell us the truth about what happened!!

[Arti]

Nightmare, thanks for that. I understand it and know it to be true, but it still grates. It's like the one where you flip a coin 10 times and it comes up 'heads' every time, yet the chance of it being 'tails' on the next throw is still 50-50.
Sidkid, I remember when it happened, but just put it down to bad luck and chance on those players' parts. I'd never thought about the 'lucky dip' angle before. It would be interesting to find out how many of the jackpot winners that week did use lucky dip for their numbers.