Lottery: Buy two tickets.

[answerbok]

and double your chances of winning. How many of you support this erratic belief. You don't Really believe that do you? Am i then a fool for only buying one? or a bigger fool if i don't buy any? 1 ticket per session? or just one ticket, period??

[DBusby]

Your absolutely right. Because the probibility of winning is just (1/14,000,000)*2

[smorodina]

I don't know what's going on here. 1 in 7,000,000 is the same as 7,000,000 to 1. If you buy 1 ticket your odds are 1 in 14,000,000. If you buy 2 tickets you get 2 in 14,000,000. This IS the same as 1in 7,000,000. Seven tickets would give you odds of 1 in 2,000,000 ' long odds, but a fair reduction. 7,000,000 tickets would give you even odds of 1 in 2, and obviously, 14,000,000 tickets would give you a dead cert of 1 in 1. You might as well argue that buying 14,000,000 tickets gives you a statistical likelyhood of 1 to 1 'but the odds have hardly changed at all'. It's the same thing. Just because long odds give you a low chance of winning doesn't mean it's not a strict mathematical chance.

[Headtime]

With all the greatest respect, Answerbok...is it something that should really get you so wound up in the first place?

Now! inserts that fall out of magazines, and people who don't have their tube ticket out when thay get up to the barriers...don't get me started

[sft42]

Your odds on winning don't half if you buy two tickets...for gawds sake if that was the case then 3 tickets = 3,500,000 to 1, 4 tickets = 1,175,000 and so on to be alomst certain of winning you'd only have to buy 20 tickets to reduce your odds to just under 27 to 1.....does anyone think this is really the case??? I didn't word my previous post very well but this is patently NOT the case. Ask a bookie if you really want to know what the odds of winning with two tickets is.

[j2buttonsw]

sft42, as I said on my 3rd post to this answer: "Nobody said that you halve you chances every time you bought another ticket, only when you buy the second ticket. The third time it goes from 1 in 7, 000, 000 to 1 in 4, 700, 000, the fourth to 1 in 3, 500, 000 etc etc" This is rudimentary mathematics; if you don't understand this then I suggest you enrol on an evening class.

[jenstar]

It always amazes me that the standard of numeracy in this country is so low, and that hardly anyone seems concerned about it. Especially when you consider that people without a grasp of basic mathematical concepts like probability and exponential growth are liable to get royally ripped off by credit companies, extended warranties, and of course the National Lottery itself.

[darth vader]

good grief are we still debating this? Has nobody spotted the correlation? You double your chances if you double the number of tickets.....
1 ticket = 1:14,000,000
2 tickets = 1:7,000,000
4 tickets = 1:3,500,000
8 tickets = 1:1,750,000
16 tickets = 1:8750,000
..........etc
(1:14,000,000 = 1 in 14 million = 1/14mill = 14million to 1)
so as 2 is the double of 1 then so your chances double by buying 1 extra ticket but only on the first step after that you have to double the number in your hand again, to double the chances. Agree with Jenstar, dig out your O level maths books!

[darth vader]

Also you have to assume the person is not stupid enough to buy the same numbers on two separate tickets otherwise the odds don't change - 4 tickets with 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 is still a 14million to 1 chance of winning (4 times). Grin

[gmc2002]

Assuming all tickets are different combinations Ticket 1 odds = 1 / 13983816 Ticket 2 odds = 1 / 13983815 Ticket 3 odds = 1 / 13983814 <-- decreasing; as the number which you can pick without repeating yourelf decreases. ... Ticket n odds = 1 / (13983816 - (n-1) ) The odds of winning after buying n tickets is the sum of the odds from each ticket... (1/13983816) + (1/13983815) + (1/13983814) + (1/13983813) +...+ (1/(13983816 - (n-1)))

[JiverSteve]

Thought I would complicate the problem further. In simple terms mor tickets = improved probability of winning.... BUT The argument has been based on the jackpot not the prize fund. Whilst one ticket may not win the jackpot it might win �50 so if you had 1.6 million tickets each only winning �50.00 you could get �8 million prize money without winning the jackpot. Now all this is theory but it has happened on a roll over. Camelot were once shitting bricks that organised crime would buy several million tickets simply to get all the smaller prizes. But The theory begins to fall down on one count. Whilst the theoretical odds are 1 in 14 million, each lottery ticket purhased actually increaces the total prize fund marginally so the more tickets you have the more you potentially can win simply because the prize fund is bigger and not because of the theoretical odds.