Lottery Odds

[phl666]

If the chances of winning the Lottery are 14 million to 1, does that mean that if I bought two tickets, the odds are 14 million to 2 (i.e. 7 million to 1)?

[jean88]

No, it would still be 14 million to 1 because there is only one winning ticket.

[MORELLO]

Surely the odds of 14m to 1 are only an average, as the odds must fluctuate each week depending on how many tickets are purchased?

[don1]

I'm not going to argue with Jean because my knowledge of math is less than nothing, but I think the phraseology is this: if you buy one ticket your chance of winning is one in fourteen million.

If you buy two tickets your chance of winning is two in fourteen million, and if you buy ten tickets your chance of winning is ten in fourteen million.

Phrase it how you like.

[woofgang]

to futher complicate matters, If some of the numbers on each ticket are the same, then while your odds are better than i in 14 million, do they actually go up to 2 in 14 million???

[kempie]

You should be careful using the word 'Lottery' when you mean Lotto.

A lottery has one winning ticket from all the issued tickets whereas a lotto can have many, one or no winning ticket.

[WoWo]

I that was the case you would only need to purchase 23 tickets to win the lottery.

[kempie]

WoWo, I do not understand what you mean!

[Loosehead]

The 14 million refers to the number of possible combinations of 6 numbers from 49. So if you buy a ticket then the chance of matching all 6 numbers is approx 14 million to 1, if you buy 2 tickets then the chance of matching 6 numbers in one of the 2 tickets are 14 million to 2 so yes buy buying 2 tickets you have doubled your chance of matching 6 numbers. What you actually win depends on the prize division rules and how many others also match 6 numbers.

[twiglet4frog]

be easier to work out how u will do in terms of percentage, like if u had 14 million individual non-same tickets u would win 100%

if u had 7 million all differnt u would have a 50% chance etc

[Loosehead]

No twiglet, if you had all the combinations you would win at least one share of the jackpot not 100%. The percentage of the prize pot would be approx 48%  and if someone else also had the winning 6 numbers you would only get half that. 

[galaxy]

I think twiglet means that you have a 100% chance of winning, not that you would win 100% of the prize.

[stevie21]

The 14 million to one odds that's frequently quoted comes from the fact that there are roughly 14 million unique combinations of lottery numbers so if you buy one ticket, that's yer odds.
In that sense (as already mentioned) if you buy two tickets with no matching numbers then I think that you have odds of 7 million to one of having a winning ticket that matches all 6 numbers.

[kempie]

The chance of you predicting 6 unique numbers from a pool of all the numbers from 1 to 49 is 1 in 13,983,816.

Each new ticket you buy which is different to the previous tickets (even if only one number of the six is different) increases your chance by 1.

[Royal Pollen]

if you bought 2 tickets and the numbers were different you'd have a 2 in 14,000,000 or a 1 in 7,000,000 chance thats right.

think of it this way. If you bought 7,000,000 tickets with all different numbers then you would have bought half the possible numbers and therefor a 1 in 2 chance, or if you bought 14,000,000 tickets then u would have all the numbers which would give you a 1 in 1 chance

[Royal Pollen]

make that 'the series of numbers were different'. as long as you have a unique series of numbers then thats how the odds would work

[howelli]

So what's the chance of not matching any of your numbers on ticket A and on tickets A&B if each ticket had different numbers?

[chazza]

If they are the same number, your odds will stay the same.

 

If they have a different combination of numbers, then you have used up 2 of 14 million possibilities, therefore increasing your likelihood of winning to 1 in 7million

[WoWo]

"if you bought 2 tickets and the numbers were different you'd have a 2 in 14,000,000 or a 1 in 7,000,000 chance thats right."

That's not right, and to answer kempie.... Using that forumla i.e. 1 ticket 1 in 14 Million, 2 tickets 1 in 7 Million.... so if you keep goin on that assumption it works out in the following way

1 Ticket = 1 in 14 Million
2 Tickets = 1 in 7 Million
3 Tickets = 1 in 3,500,000
4 Tickets = 1 in 1,750,000
5 Tickets = 1 in 875,000
6 Tickets = 1 in 437,500
..
..
17 Tickets = 1 in 106
18 Tickets = 1 in 53
19 Tickets = 1 in 26
20 Tickets = 1 in 13
21 Tickets = 1 in 6
22 Tickets = 1 in 3
23 Tickets = 1 in 1 (1.6689 to be exact)

So using that logical all you need are 23 tickets to win the lottery.

2 Tickets is a 2 in 14000000 chance this is not the same as 1 in 7000000 because there are 14000000 combinations. You can't factor down the number of combinations in this way.

Your applying fraction logic which doesn't apply in this case.

[Tim123]

This is getting unnecessarily complicated, and don1 is exactly right.

Each time you buy a ticket that doesn't EXACTLY duplicate one you already have, another of the 13,983,816 possible combinations of balls becomes a winner for you.

So:
One ticket gives you one winning combination, out of the 13,983,816 possible combinations.
Two tickets give you two winning combinations, out of the 13,983,816 possible combinations.
Three tickets give you three winning combinations, out of the 13,983,816 possible combinations.
And so on.

So your chance of winning with 2 different selections is 2 in 13,983,816 , or 1 in 6,991,908.
Your chance of winning with 3 different selections is 3 in 13,983,816 , or 1 in 4,661,272.
Note that after 2, your chance of winning does NOT double each time you buy another ticket (with 23 different selections the chance of winning is 23 in 13,983,816 , or 1 in 607,992).

[chazza]

Wowo thats not what i was saying.  This was my theory:

1 ticket = 1 in 14million

2 tickets = 2 in 14million (1 in 7million)

3 tickets= 3 in 14million

4 tickets=4 in 14 million (1 in 3.5million)

5 tickets= 5 in 14million 

14million tickets = 14million in 14million (ie 1 in 1, if you buy 14million tickets you will definitely win!)

 

 

It doesnt double the probability every time, but every time you double the number of tickets bought.