Source: Powerball frenzy locks down most possible number combos - CBS News Here I was planning to wait until after the drawing and go for the 'big prize.' It had never occurred to me that so many numbers were already purchased. I didn't want to 'share' my big win so we could go with the annual payment, not the one-time award. <SIGH> Now with the payoff being greater than the cost of one ticket times the odds, one might think it is worth it. But given the higher probability of multiple owners of the same ticket number, it moves the payback too far out. Bob Wilson
If I won I'd opt for the annual. If you just go hog wild and blow the money the first year at least you get more cash every year for another 19 years. One thing for sure, I'd quit my job and take a 5 star hotel vacation around the world exploring cities etc. Set my 2 children up so they don't have to worry about money. Study financial panning and invest the money very conservative Purchase a his and hers Tesla Get a bigger Beach house in Del Mar, CA But what are the odds of that happening? 500,000,000,000,000 to one.
In the case of the Lotto, I suppose you're right but I have toyed with the idea of getting Lotto tickets when the 'win' is greater than the odds and cost of a ticket. Just I hadn't considered multiple tickets with the same numbers. Now if one could get a ticket that had not yet been bought, it becomes an acceptable risk. My preferred game is craps. The odds are well known and the house advantage can be reduced to no more than 1.4%. Proper play can reduce the house advantage to less than 1% by taking and laying odds. So the real payoff are the free drinks and comps. Best of all, optimum craps entails only four bets which are easy to follow no matter how much you've had to drink. Bob Wilson
I'll admit, I'm a gambler. Powerball = I got mine... And the CA Lotto... And the Mega... The wife plays scratchers... We had one year where we spent more than we won... but that year included Vegas in the casino tours. We are ahead this year still. And if it's my ticket in the pool... I intend to share some with folks I know and love.
I don't suppose anyone notices that gambling can also be entertainment. Buy a Lotto ticket and 'come dreams that may' for a day or two. <grins> But the important part is to know gambling money comes from the 'entertainment' budget. It is not a way of life unless one owns the casino. Bob Wilson
Yes, the real value of buying a Lotto ticket is the brief fantasy it can give you. Other than that, it's primarily a tax on the mathematically challenged. Unfortunately, it is also a way of life for all too many people who lack control over their gambling.
LOL I'll keep that in mind if I ever take up drinking. Do you happen to know of any casinos that offer tea and cookies instead ?
my daughter purchased a ticket, says she'll share the winnings. i have never purchased a lottery ticket, but my uncle and cousin won a million dollars each, within three days of each other last year. the net isn't enough to retire on, but it beats a sharp stick in the eye.
The odds of finding the winning ticket on the sidewalk could not be much worse than an individual purchasing the winning ticket. Just sayin.
What? You are an scientist/engineer/mathematician and you didn't go through exercise of figuring the expected return of a lottery ticket, discounting for taxes and present value and risk of having to share the jackpot, and including the value of the smaller prizes? I found several drawing of our previous single-state game with positive expected value. But that happened only when the jackpot was sweetened by many consecutive rollovers, and the great majority of players had switched to the new multi-state game with a much larger jackpot, nevermind the far worse odds. And that older game had only a few more weeks to go before being shut down.
There are some games whose odds are so stacked in the house advantage, it isn't worth the effort to calculate. It was the probability of a duplicate number that I had not considered before that further lengthened the odds. In reality, a lottery is a voluntary tax, a contribution to the state or states. So I don't 'set my hair on fire' about them but use the more or 'gag' gifts: 'door prizes' for charity parties 'Want to see my <insert corporate name> pension?' Well I understand there is a single winner in Florida: Source: $590M-plus Powerball: 1 winning ticket sold in Fla - Business - Boston.com Bob Wilson
So I noticed this recent article: Source: Electrical Brain Stimulation Helps People Learn Math Faster | Wired Science | Wired.com When I was just learning to read, I became interested in electricity. Back then we had crystal AM radios and I would play with batteries, flashlights, wires, aluminum foil, potatoes and steel wool. I had no real instruments but I knew how to test batteries with the wet finger tongue method. Then one day, I found the portable 'tube' radio would not turn on. I opened the battery compartment and found a 6V battery for the filaments and a 75V battery for the tube electronics. The 6V battery test tasted good so that left the 75V battery whose terminals were about half an inch apart so . . . I woke up about a six feet behind on the bed that had been behind me. So apparently electrical stimulation worked. Then there was the time I got a rusted door bell to work . . . with 110V AC . . . Bob Wilson
For me, the entertainment value of figuring out the discount factor from shared jackpots was worth several plays. But for most other folks 'math puzzle' and 'entertainment' don't fit into the same paragraph. It is unfortunate that a large portion of lottery sales goes to people who cannot afford much entertainment.
