Can We Hit the Lotto Again?

[IRV]

The company I work for had an individual win the Florida lottery about 6 years ago. Can it be proven mathematically that our odds are worst now since we already had a winner?

Another related question. What has a more +EV, spending $1 per week on lotto or $5? I can't see your win percentage changing much.

[knsmith85]

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The company I work for had an individual win the Florida lottery about 6 years ago. Can it be proven mathematically that our odds are worst now since we already had a winner?

Another related question. What has a more +EV, spending $1 per week on lotto or $5? I can't see your win percentage changing much.

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1) There is no change to your company's chances, unless Florida has changed the way they do the lotto. In fact, there is just as much chance that 1-2-3-4-5-6 will be the winning numbers tomorrow as any random combination. It turns out, though, that playing these numbers is unwise solely because there are a handful of people out there that play these every time, and so if it does hit you'll be splitting with a larger number of people than most other number combinations.

2) The lottery is NOT +EV. Play $1/day gives you BETTER EV, but NOT +EV. Doing $1/day has an EV that is negative, but closer to 0 than $5/day.

[other1]

I've always thought buying multiple tickets was pointless. Lets say it's a huge megamillions jackpot.. The odds of winning, if I calculated it correctly, are 1 in 135,145,920. Is 5 in 135,145,920 really any better? I'd say it's a pretty insignificant change in the odds.

[knsmith85]

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I've always thought buying multiple tickets was pointless. Lets say it's a huge megamillions jackpot.. The odds of winning, if I calculated it correctly, are 1 in 135,145,920. Is 5 in 135,145,920 really any better? I'd say it's a pretty insignificant change in the odds.

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Well, you have a 5 times greater chance of winning. It's just that to get to a significant level, you need like a 10,000 or 100,000 out of 130 million chance in winning.

The key with the lottery is the "Utility Function". Now, I don't even really know what it means, but I saw someone else mention it and from what I can gather it's that even though the lottery is -EV you can justify it because the result of winning is so life-changing that the losses from playing are reasonable. I'm not sure how you'd use this "Utility Function" in an actual mathematical equation, though - can someone enlighten me?

Realize that this is just the opposite of a common situation in poker - you're in a NL tournament where you are by far the best player. On the first hand, you pick up a flush draw, and someone moves all-in and there is a call behind them. You have the pot odds here to make the call, but the risk of going out when you can win anyways is much too great to justify a call. That's why it can be good to enter -EV situations as well as avoid +EV ones.

[shummie]

Your place of employment may have even greater odds of hitting now if this win has encouraged others to play.

- Jason

[niin]

Why would your chances be worse because you won in the past? Do the lottery balls 'remember' you and hate you now because you won 6 years ago, and magically know what numbers you've picked and conspire to not bring up your numbers?

Lottery balls don't have a memory.

Sorry for the dramatic tone, but it makes no sense that you'd have a worse chance now simply because you won previously.

In fact, since you won previously, you might get more people buying in and, thus, might collectively have a better chance of winning (the more entries you buy, the better your microscopic chances are).

[Hack]

Doesn't the lottery become +EV when the jackpot exceeds your odds of winning it? If the jackpot reaches say, 300 million, and the odds of winning it are 200 million to 1, then isn't it +EV to buy a ticket?

[Marm]

That was always my contetnion, but now I have a name for it, The utility function, I like it. I play every now and then, just for S&G's (S**ts and Giggles), but the Reward for winning far far far out weighs the $5 I spend a week on it.

ANd since the odds for the MM jackpot are 135,145,920, and taxes take out 48%, then the jackpot would have to be higher than $200,015,961.60 to make this +EV. And it has hit that high on occasion.

[college kid]

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The company I work for had an individual win the Florida lottery about 6 years ago. Can it be proven mathematically that our odds are worst now since we already had a winner?

Another related question. What has a more +EV, spending $1 per week on lotto or $5? I can't see your win percentage changing much.

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't read the other posts yet so I might be saying what has already been said.

1. No, there is no effect on your chances of winning because someone you know, work with, love, once knew, met on the street, saw in a supporting role in a movie, or read a novel by won.

2. The lotto has a high "house" edge and it is therefore the better EV play to play $1 a week than $5, if your only choice was one of the two. Obviously, not playing has the highest expectation, unless of course you know how to legally rig the lotto or get extra information--in which case you might have an edge by playing. But that is shady and most everything you can possible do would not be advantage play, it would be cheating--which is definately -EV with the high risk involved and teh fact that you don't keep the money if you are caught.

[niin]

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Doesn't the lottery become +EV when the jackpot exceeds your odds of winning it? If the jackpot reaches say, 300 million, and the odds of winning it are 200 million to 1, then isn't it +EV to buy a ticket?

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Only if you're the only one to win... if multiple people win, then it's no longer a positive bet.