ChatterBank0 min ago
National Lottery Losing Line Odds
I'll try and word this as best as I can.....
What is the probability of you playing the SAME 6 numbers since the lottery first started and never have won anything?
e.g. if you played 1,2,3,4,5,6 every draw (including Wednesdays) but a combination of 3 of those numbers have never been drawn to win at least £10.
If there has been such a combination can anyone work out what the numbers would be?
What is the probability of you playing the SAME 6 numbers since the lottery first started and never have won anything?
e.g. if you played 1,2,3,4,5,6 every draw (including Wednesdays) but a combination of 3 of those numbers have never been drawn to win at least £10.
If there has been such a combination can anyone work out what the numbers would be?
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This is a topic dear to my heart and I think the difficulty between you and Ellipsis, Geezer, is that (correct me if I’m wrong) your calculations assume that in 14m draws, every combination of six numbers will occur. So, if you stick to your six numbers and enter the draw 14m times you are assured of a win.
Of course this is not so because, as each draw is independent of all those that have gone previously, an identical set of six numbers can be drawn more than once.
As you say “...for all the combinations to get drawn out could take forever.” Yes it could. There is no guarantee that every combination will eventually be drawn however many draws are made (in the same way that there is no guarantee that you will eventually throw a six no matter how many times a die is rolled). It could also take precisely 13,983,816 draws (the number of combinations of six in forty-nine). To go back to the dice analogy, every time a die is rolled there is a one in six chance that a six will result. However, there is no guarantee that a six will ever be thrown no matter how many times it is rolled, but the odds against rolling a six AT ANY TIME increases as the number of rolls increases. With six rolls you do not have a 100% chance of rolling a six, but about 67%. With 12 rolls about 88%. This percentage increases as the number of rolls increases and steadily approaches 100% but never reaches it.
The comment that “numbers 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 have never occurred anywhere is probably true. But you might also say that the numbers 8,12, 34, 41, 43 and 49 have also never occurred. It’s just that nobody notices non-sequential combinations.
Of course this is not so because, as each draw is independent of all those that have gone previously, an identical set of six numbers can be drawn more than once.
As you say “...for all the combinations to get drawn out could take forever.” Yes it could. There is no guarantee that every combination will eventually be drawn however many draws are made (in the same way that there is no guarantee that you will eventually throw a six no matter how many times a die is rolled). It could also take precisely 13,983,816 draws (the number of combinations of six in forty-nine). To go back to the dice analogy, every time a die is rolled there is a one in six chance that a six will result. However, there is no guarantee that a six will ever be thrown no matter how many times it is rolled, but the odds against rolling a six AT ANY TIME increases as the number of rolls increases. With six rolls you do not have a 100% chance of rolling a six, but about 67%. With 12 rolls about 88%. This percentage increases as the number of rolls increases and steadily approaches 100% but never reaches it.
The comment that “numbers 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 have never occurred anywhere is probably true. But you might also say that the numbers 8,12, 34, 41, 43 and 49 have also never occurred. It’s just that nobody notices non-sequential combinations.
Like His Lordship, I believe that only sure way to win is to take ALL combinations in ONE lottery.
There is no combination that assures you a win, that's why it is a lottery.
Presuming there are 14m possible combinations, the odds of one and the same combination winning in14m draws is 1:1, but this does not necessarily give you a win. You could also get more than one win during that time.
There is no combination that assures you a win, that's why it is a lottery.
Presuming there are 14m possible combinations, the odds of one and the same combination winning in14m draws is 1:1, but this does not necessarily give you a win. You could also get more than one win during that time.
Factor: What you say can't be right!! If you do the calculation that you propose then the probability of heads not coming up for 10 times in a row is 1- (0.5)^10, which is approx = 1, which is ridiculous.
The probability of 10 consecutive heads not coming up is that that 10 consecutive tails DO come up, which is 0.5^10= small!! Much more reasonable.
The probability of 10 consecutive heads not coming up is that that 10 consecutive tails DO come up, which is 0.5^10= small!! Much more reasonable.
Hi vascop- maybe we are talking at cross purposes then.
I thought that the poster meant that if you toss a coin 10 times what is the probability that you don't get 10 consecutive heads. So that allows any combination except 10 consecutive heads (for which the probability is 0.5^10). So the chance of not getting 10 consecutive heads is 1-0.5^10, which is very close to 1.
I thought that the poster meant that if you toss a coin 10 times what is the probability that you don't get 10 consecutive heads. So that allows any combination except 10 consecutive heads (for which the probability is 0.5^10). So the chance of not getting 10 consecutive heads is 1-0.5^10, which is very close to 1.
To get back to the lottery issue, here habeen some discussion in this thread about 1 2 3 4 5 6 never having come up. This is certainly not the only set of numbers never to come up.
There are 13,983,816 possible combinations of numbers when choosing 6 balls from 49.
I don't know how many draws we've had but if you use a figure of 2 draws a week
for 17 years that's nearly 1800 draws. So assuming there has been little or no duplication of sets of winning numbers only 1800 of the possible 13,983,816 combinations. That still leaves around 13,982,000 combinations that haven't come up yet .
There are 13,983,816 possible combinations of numbers when choosing 6 balls from 49.
I don't know how many draws we've had but if you use a figure of 2 draws a week
for 17 years that's nearly 1800 draws. So assuming there has been little or no duplication of sets of winning numbers only 1800 of the possible 13,983,816 combinations. That still leaves around 13,982,000 combinations that haven't come up yet .
Not that it would happen and people would just think of it as a fix but every number has as many chances as any in the lottery so There would always be a chance that the same combination of numbers came out every single time from when it started till now as if a certain combination that you picked would never come out in all the time it's been going. It's pure random so you can't say a probability other than its probable that your numbers will come out if the lottery went on for eternity but other than that there's nothing stopping them ever being picked at all. It's random
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