Posted on 01/11/2016 8:39:20 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Wednesday's Powerball jackpot is on its way to an estimated $1.4 billion, after nobody matched all six numbers in Saturday night's drawing. The prize would be the biggest of all time, dwarfing the MegaMillions $656 million high-water mark of 2012. This is a big deal.
Unless you're really, really smart and lucky -- see Joan Ginther, among others -- playing the lottery is a bad idea, financially speaking. Of course there's the fun, thrilling aspect of playing, which is not to be discounted, even by a belt-and-suspenders-type publication like MONEY.
But there's actually a case to be made that in some rare instances, it's mathematically advantageous to roll the dice on some Powerball, or other lottery tickets. When a jackpot grows, it brings up the value of a ticket, which in Powerball's case costs $2. That's called the expected value, and it's found by multiplying the payout by the probability of winning.
Here's a simple example: In a basic lottery with just one prize, $1 tickets, and 100 people playing, any jackpot over $100 will mean that a ticket will be worth more than the $1 it costs. If you bought all the tickets for $100, you would win the jackpot and take home more than what you paid. So theoretically, at a certain size, a lottery ticket can actually be worth more than what you pay for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
You’re playing against numbers, not other players.
Your odds are 50-50. You either win or you lose! ;D
All you need is 600 million bucks and you’re set.
Random numbers are scientific as are permutations and combinations.
And that is where you are extremely wrong. That's the liberal way of thinking. The conservative way of thinking, is to think smart, work hard and invest in your future. Be liberal, be poor.
Maybe you just don't know what it feels like to have no hope at all and how having something, ANYTHING completely changes that
Both my wife and I grew up poor in large families. My wife had to work as a child to help bring in enough money to put food on the table. When she wasn't in school, she was working alongside her father selling vegetables and sundries. My Dad did not graduate from school, was raised by his older brothers, and worked from a young age. Passed that work ethic along to me and my siblings. All he knew was hard work. We were poor, in early days living in a 1-room apt sharing a hallway bathroom with black families. I worked odd jobs as a kid, sweeping store basements, hawking newspapers and mowing lawns. I started formal work with industrial machines part time at 16 when not in school.
Me and my wife married young, without any money left over after bills but we squeezed by. I worked my way through college, and we both progressed into better and better jobs while saving and investing what we could, while in our twenties. My wife got ill with cancer, but we still plugged away after her many treatments and surgeries. She is doing better now, after 20 years of this but is still taking chemo treatments. We're prosperous now and enjoy caring for our grandchildren.
So yes, I do know what it feels like to have no hope at all, but I don't count on a game of chance to change that. God helps those who help themselves.
People make good money selling books about lottery strategies though ;-)
As to prime numbers, you have to start somewhere. In the past, I didn't consider prime numbers. I'll have to do more reading about them, but they can serve as anchors to expand on.
This was interesting and scientific so maybe I'm on the right track. Included are a set of 4 problems, 3 of which I solved easily, and one I couldn't. Usually this kind of problem, they eventually get too difficult for me.
https://plus.maths.org/content/prime-number-lottery
My strategy would be to eliminate the patterns to narrow the field, then pick from those remaining. But I would need a computer to do that even for the one I worked on before which was under 40 numbers, can't remember the range now.
It should be noted it wouldn't necessarily be numbers per se but their character. For example, almost every one has at least one even or odd number. They have a spread. I'm just starting to look at the differences between a number and the next one, then the difference between those and so on.
Then i'll get fed up with it all and try to learn more and turn to something else.
It sounds like you took a heuristic approach. In the end, mine weren't any better than your sequential numbers, but i would never play those. Eventually they will pop up if it goes on long enough.
I would never play ALL the 6 numbers of numbers that have won before going back maybe to the beginning of Powerball.
If I can get my car started tomorrow, I may go and buy a few tickets. I hope I can stop at 5 like you do. I wish I could show you the crude table I worked out yesterday. I could have easily made a mistake because I just wanted a rough look.
Powerball hits since Jan 2015: 1,5 ; 2,3; 3,1; 4,1; 5,3; 6,3; 7,9; 8,4; 9,3; 10,4; 11,5; 12,5; 13,2; 14,1; 15,5; 16,5; 17,5; 18,5; 19;5, 20,1; 21,3, 22,6; 23,2; 24,3; 25,4; 26,1; 27,3; 28,3; 29,2; 30,2; 31,0; 32,2; 33,4; 34,1; 35,1; 36,1.
I wish you could see them in a column vertically. They definitely cluster in a broad mid-section. There are just enough exceptions to make you go aargh.
Is it tonight or tomorrow night? I thought it was Sat and Wed.
No. You are not playing the game against other players like a poker game. You are playing against a fixed number of ping ball balls that are the same weather there are millions of players or only one player. The odds are the same for every draw.
Yea, I met a really stupid guy that won $130,000,000.00. That’s why I play...
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