Euromillions lottery and luck

CJ_London

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Yesterday I was feeling lucky and bought an entry for £2.50. You've got to be in it to win right?

I won £2.40 so not unlucky, but not really lucky either.

What I did notice though was the UK seem to win between 20% and 35% of each prize. I checked a few weeks and this seems to be consistent.

The population of the UK is 66m, whilst for the whole of the EU it is 508m - 13% - I know this is the whole population, not just those eligible to play, but this is rough statistics.

So this means either UK players are luckier than the EU as a whole, or a much higher proportion of players are from the UK, the rest of Europe (perhaps wisely) recognising they are not going to be that lucky.

I suspect it is the latter, I don't believe luck favours the few - but you do have to be in it to win it.

I don't know much about the Euromillions lottery, I know we pay more in the UK than the EU, but there is also the UK millionaire element which might redress that balance.

I also don't know how the profits are distributed to charity - in proportion to what each country has spent in buying tickets perhaps?

Not sure where to take these observations, but if anyone has info that would refine the numbers it could be interesting to see how much of a gambling nation the UK really is. Perhaps a gambling ethos is what has pushed us towards brexit?
 
My understanding is that the EU / GBP difference is made up for by the UK millionaires additional prizes.

There is a break down of the prize funds on the lottery site. Bot the UK and Euro lotteries are run by Camelot.
 
There is a break down of the prize funds on the lottery site.
I know, that is where I got the 20-35% from:)
 
Yesterday I was feeling lucky and bought an entry for £2.50. You've got to be in it to win right?

I won £2.40 so not unlucky, but not really lucky either.
Just to be clear, you won less than you entered? Usually it's a 1:1 winning ratio or higher. Maybe I am missing something. Okay more than one line, got it.:o
 
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The USA Mega-Millions and PowerBall lotteries are no better at odds. I've played a few times when the prize gets up high enough to whet my interest. And CJ, it is not easy getting 2 numbers on this side of the pond either.

I once bought a multi-line ticket with the "quick pick" (randomized) option and hit five numbers... one on each of five lines. Don't ask me to repeat what I said at the time. It would probably melt some sensitive piece of networking equipment along the path from me to the forum.
 
Here in California you can buy scratch off tickets to see if you win anything. So the last time I bought any tickets was many years ago. The reason I do not buy them anymore. I bought 20 tickets (all at once) and I did not win anything.



Interesting to note there is a Nicolas Cage movie where he plays a con man (Matchstick Men). So to prove a con he buys a ticket using the same numbers as had won the day before. The clerk behind the counter said something like this 'Do you what the odds are that the same numbers would win again', I wanted to shout through the screen, The same odds as any number winning idiot.
 
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The lottery is an entertainment expense, not an investment strategy. - my .02
 
AI, you have spoken truth!

Just like a ticket to WWE Championship Wrestling is an evening of entertainment but not an evening of sports.
 
Years ago, I did a test over a year on the lottery, picking six numbers from
1 to 59. I think I had ten sets of numbers each time. Some random the whole year
and some the same for the whole year. I wrote a little program to check the numbers
and work out what the returns would have been if I had actually played and paid.

If I had bought the tickets I would have only had a 60% return, losing 40% over
the year. The rewards are so tiny. Picking four correct numbers is hard and with a very
small return. The odds are tiny for picking 5 or 6 numbers and five is not often a life
changing amount.
The EU lottery is worse as the split number system chops up your probability/chances.
The lotto isn't a business proposition. Another year may have been better or worse
but I didn't have the patience to continue the test. One irritation was that I couldn't
download and import results.

I concluded that whilst there isn't anywhere where you can invest so little to
give such a huge return. The probability of a decent win is miniscule. Plus, if
all of the six winning numbers are less than 31, you'll be sharing it with far too
many other winners.

Maybe the only chance of winning is to pick one set of random numbers, maybe two
or three times a year. If you win great, if not you've only lost £6 a year.
Playing it on a regular basis is just illogical and can only result in losses.
 
The probability of a decent win is miniscule.
Playing it on a regular basis is just illogical and can only result in losses.
That's how any game of chance works, and it took you a year to reach that conclusion?
Col
 
The "house" always has the edge. If you want to gamble, play craps. Play the pass and come lines and take the odds. That strategy minimises the house vig to about as little as possible. I think roulette is the worst game in the house for the customer, that is why it is always near the entrance to the casino.
 
Never taken to playing craps, but can see interest in gaming the odds. Never been interested in playing any card, or computer games either.

In my younger day I would always win on roulette. Guarantee it. Anyone can win at roulette, it just takes a huge amount of time. Several hours of not placing a bet. Then maybe two, or three minutes, don’t be too greedy and go. My casino and gambling phase was in the mid to the end of the 1970s. Casinos were members only back then, I don’t know if it is now. It wasn’t a spectator sport, not somewhere to take your wife on a night out. After a while though, you are politely asked to take your custom elsewhere. So you end up with nowhere to bet. Fun whilst it lasted.

We went to Malta a few years ago and there was a casino in the hotel. I called in and over one longish night, paid for nearly a half of the holiday from a £50 start. Patience, boredom, probability, repeat, plus one trivial but important thing that everyone ignores in roulette.

On the subject of never. I always advise never go on a one armed bandit (slots?), or gamble online. Basically you are playing against a computer. It is people like us that program those things to control the pay-out, or maybe AI these days? Same with the seriously restricted scratch cards.
 
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That's how any game of chance works, and it took you a year to reach that conclusion?
No Col it was a test out of interest.
I was just glad that none of my numbers won a huge prize. That would have been a bummer.
Quantity was of no moment in that instance due to the maths.

Whilst in Premium Bonds it is a well established fact that most large wins go to the holders of the maximum investment allowed. There are of course the occasional odd lucky bond that wins but they are in the minority. The chances did reduce when interest rates were very low and there was an unusually large inflow of money into Premium Bonds. Quantity is a factor there. A return of over 3.4% tax free can be obtained, depending.

But as I say the possibilities in the lottery are far higher. That undefinable aspect, luck can be the only chance of a win. So it is illogical to buy more than one, more that a few times a year. Now I see they trick the gullible by giving a free bet if they have picked two numbers. 99.99% will not just take the free lucky dip, they will buy more when they claim it, increasing turnover and the super-normal profits of the lottery company.
 
I think the best bet is to keep your money in your pocket.
Col
 
If you have a few dollars a week to spare, playing the lottery is better than spending your spare change on donuts. There is no upside to donuts but there is actually a miniscule chance that you could win a prize big enough to change your life if you pick the winning numbers.
 
My favorite paper ticket is "Lucky for Life" You can win $1000 a day for life. 2nd prize is $25,000 a year for life and then there are smaller prizes too. I usually buy a weeks worth of draws ($14) every Monday. It's a rare week when I don't win back ay least a little, usually around $6 to $12. Still a loss but it softens the blow.

I do fairly well on scratch tickets. I often hit $500 tickets every few weeks. When I do I usually go do a massive shopping spree at BJ's and stock up on all sorts of foods and household items. I just hit $500 on Tuesday and went and bought a Blackstone Outdoor Griddle. Also hit the supermarket for a bunch of foods to try it out. That at least makes me feel like I have something to show for my losses.
 
I always advise never go on a one armed bandit (slots?), or gamble online. Basically you are playing against a computer. It is people like us that program those things to control the pay-out, or maybe AI these days?

I used to work for a slot machine manufacturer. They are not "rigged", at least not the legal ones. They are heavily regulated and the software checked closely. They control the payout with math. They know how many stops are on a reel, and control the payout via how many of those stops have a winning item (cherry, bar, whatever). It's like if I have a single reel slot machine with 20 stops on that reel, and I put a bar that pays 2 to 1 on 9 of those stops. Every pull is random, but over time I'm going to win 55% of the time.

Same with roulette and all table games. I assume you got lucky. No matter how long you wait and watch, the next spin is random. It's like flipping a coin. If I get heads 10 times in a row, what are the odds I get tails next flip? 50%, just like every other flip.
 
Same with roulette and all table games. I assume you got lucky. No matter how long you wait and watch, the next spin is random. It's like flipping a coin. If I get heads 10 times in a row, what are the odds I get tails next flip? 50%, just like every other flip.
Of course the spin is always random. But picking the winning number is unimportant.
Thirty seven numbers split into 20 sections, plus tier bets and a few other standard bets.
Over time probability states that similar sections will end up equal. But due to the
randomness of the spin, some will often experience a drought. You need to be there then.
The only thing you don't know is the time frame. It could be days, or weeks of course.
In your own available time frame an opportunity to bet may well not result at all. But
patterns can and do emerge because of the totally random spin results. You simply
look for the patterns, keep the counts in your head and wait for your time.
QED.

The odds on a coin are of course the same but is the probability after ten, or twenty heads?
Over time, the probability is that heads and tails will be about the same. But again you do
not know the time frame. Betting on a coin spin is pointless, as are many card games.

I have actually seen 25 consecutive reds on a roulette table. At 24 the odds on 25 are even,
as are the odds on there being 26, or 27, or 50. The question is at what point after ten reds
would YOU place your bet on black? Bearing in mind that at that time you have no idea
there will be 25 reds and that you can only double your money on a win. When you've got
that answer, you may well be a little way nearer to cashing in your chips before you go home.

Never rely on luck when you bet. There is so little of it about.
 
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The question is at what point after ten reds
would YOU place your bet on black?

Never; I don't gamble, and I live in a state with legalized gaming. As I said, it's all about math, and they're able to build those billion dollar resorts in part because of people who think they found a way to beat the math. ;)

I've seen roulette tables with displays showing the last x spins, red vs black %, etc. Would they do that if it helped people beat them? I suspect they do it because it will encourage people to bet who think they see a pattern.

That all said, I'm really only familiar with Nevada style gaming, perhaps they have different methods and such across the pond.
 

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