# Go for broke on the Lotto



## Horatio

I remember a few years back a lotto syndicate laying down large amounts on the lotto draws with the huge prize money, i.e Christmas draw, St Patricks day draw or multiple roll overs, their aim was obviously to win big but I think their plan was that if they missed the big one, they'd make back a lot of their money on the match 3, 4 & 5's.

Does anyone remember the details of these guys, did the National lottery stand against them ? Were their actions legal?

I'm definetly gonna bet all My SSIA on the June bank holiday draw next year, maybe the wifes too, I'm feelin' fierce lucky !!


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## elefantfresh

They did it when there were less numbers in the draw that almost guaranteed they covered themselves. That was the reason the Lotto added more numbers to their draw. In order to cover all the computations with another 3 or 4 numbers, the odds were impractical to try and cover. I'm not an algebra man but i'm sure somebody on here could explain it better!


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## extopia

This can work when the prize fund is close to or larger than all the possible permutations of the numbers. Of course you could still have to share your "jackpot" with other genuinely lucky punters who just bought a single ticket.

I tend to agree with whoever coined the phrase about the lottery being a "tax on idiocy"


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## demoivre

At the time the syndicate to which you refer won the lottery you had to select 6 no's out of 36 ie 1947792 combinations had to be covered to guarantee  a win . At the time it was 50p a panel so the total financing costs were £973896 - however crucially there was a *guaranteed *payout of £100 for match 4's so that even if several people shared the winning prize ( and you can *never *exclude that possibility) the syndicate was fairly well covered in terms of their outlay. In todays lotto you have to choose 6 no's from 42 or 5245786 combinations to be covered to guarantee a win so the financing costs would be €5245786 and there are no guaranteed payouts for match 4's ! By the way with about 40k in SSIA money you can only cover 40000 combinations out of a total of 5245786... and even if you could finance all combinations you might share the winning prize with 4 or 5 others !


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## room305

Chances of winning the lotto are 1 in 5,245,786. Assuming your SSIA's are worth a combined €50k then your chance of winning the jackpot is 1 in 105.

I don't play the lotto but if I remember it correct the other prizes are match 5 numbers, match 4 numbers or match 3 numbers plus a seventh bonus number. Assuming I've got this correct then the odds are:

match 5: 24,286 to 1
match 4: 555 to 1
match 3+bonus: 441 to 1

So your €50k spend should see you pick up on average - 2 match 5's, 90 match 4's and 113 match 3 plus the bonus number's. You also have a close to 100 to 1 shot at the big prize.

Does anyone know enough about the average payouts from the lotto to calculate what Horatio's return will be?


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## Guest109

i mind that time i know the guy who set it up was a hungarian ,he also published a lotto system of permutations, i think it was when the lotto was a 36 number draw


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## MugsGame

This all ignores the practical problem of processing enough lines manually. I think agents are now under instructions not to accept pre-printed lines, and the Lotto computer is probably looking for patterns that might indicate a syndicate. These safeguards were introduced after the Stefan Klincewicz syndicate.


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## rkeane

what poor soul is going to have to write up all these tickets?  Can you do it online now?  Even still though, thats a weeks work.  So, minus 1 weeks wages from your winnings


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## JohnnyBoy

I remember the guy,he had a Polish sounding surname.I think the Revenue became interested because he covered all the permutations & therefore took the "chance" out of it & so the Revenue claimed he was liable for tax though.Don't know what happened though.
BTW,I've heard it labelled as a tax on the mathematically challenged.


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## Guest109

i mind the time well now as the place i do the lottery in ,the owner had told me then, one of the syndicate had called with him and had the carboot full of 
boxes of lotto tickets ,he only got a few thousand done with this outlet as its a bar and was taking up to much time, but they achieved their point,im quite sure syndicates are operating the lotteries but in a much smaller way, myself i do a 20 euro flutter each week taking in the 3 draws


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## rkeane

ainya said:


> i mind the time well now as the place i do the lottery in ,the owner had told me then, one of the syndicate had called with him and had the carboot full of
> boxes of lotto tickets ,he only got a few thousand done with this outlet as its a bar and was taking up to much time, but they achieved their point,im quite sure syndicates are operating the lotteries but in a much smaller way, myself i do a 20 euro flutter each week taking in the 3 draws


what?


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## Sherman

ainya said:


> myself i do a 20 euro flutter each week taking in the 3 draws


 
Over a grand a year, that's some 'flutter'


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## michaelm

MugsGame said:


> This all ignores the practical problem of processing enough lines manually. I think agents are now under instructions not to accept pre-printed lines, and the Lotto computer is probably looking for patterns that might indicate a syndicate. These safeguards were introduced after the Stefan Klincewicz syndicate.


These safeguards are nonsense anyway.  The lotto people were embarrassed when the syndicate tried to cover all combinations that time when there was a guaranteed £100 for match 4.  I read somewhere that they realised what was going on and started shutting down certain Lotto machines.  'Lotto computer looking for patterns . . ' doesn't mean anything as any line has the same chance as any other line.  Indeed if someone wants to do all combinations they should be able to walk into the Lotto head office, write a cheque and get one ticket to cover this.


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## DirtyH2O

From wikipedia

In a 6/36 lottery, the odds of matching all six numbers and winning the jackpot are 1 in 1,947,792. At an original cost of £0.50 Irish punt (€0.63 euro) for each six-number combination, all possible combinations could be covered for £973,896 (€1,236,848). When the jackpot reached £1.7 million (€2.1 million) for the May bank holiday in 1992, a 28-member Dublin-based syndicate organized by 43-year-old half-Polish businessman Stefan Klincewicz attempted to buy up all the possible combinations, thus guaranteeing a jackpot win. Klincewicz and his team had spent six months marking paper playslips in preparation for the "sting." Although the National Lottery attempted to foil the plan by introducing a limit on the number of tickets any machine could sell, and by switching off terminals Klincewicz's team of ticket purchasers were using heavily, the syndicate did have the winning numbers on the night. However, two other winning tickets were sold, so the syndicate was able to claim only one third of the jackpot, or £568,682 (€722,226). Many smaller match-5 and match-4 prizes brought its total winnings to approximately £1,166,000 (€1,480,000), representing only a modest profit after expenses. Klincewicz appeared on the popular talk show Kenny Live and later cashed in on his shortlived notoriety with a popular self-published lottery-system book entitled _Win the Lotto._
To prevent such a scheme from recurring, the National Lottery changed Lotto to a 6/39 game in August 1992, raising the jackpot odds to 1 in 3,262,623. To compensate for these longer odds, the company added a "bonus number" to the drawings and awarded prizes for match 5+bonus, match 5, match 4+bonus, match 4, and match 3+bonus. In September 1994, Lotto became a 6/42 game, which made the jackpot odds 1 in 5,245,786. The National Lottery made this change to generate bigger rollover jackpots, partly so people living near the border with Northern Ireland would not forsake Lotto for the significantly higher jackpots available in the 6/49 British National Lottery, which began operations in November 1994. At this time, the National Lottery also introduced computer-generated "quick picks" as an alternative to marking numbers on paper playslips. Some smaller retailers now only offer the quick-pick option.
In 1998, the cost of Lotto rose from £0.50 to £0.75 per line of six numbers. With the introduction of the new euro currency on January 1, 2002, the cost became €0.95, and was shortly thereafter rounded to €1.


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## ClubMan

Isn't it the case that there are 5,245,786 permutations of 6 (non repeating) numbers drawn from a pool of 42 (e.g. see here) so the cost of guaranteeing at least a share in the jackpot would be €5,245,786 - i.e. hardly worth it.

_Post crossed with DirtyH20's._


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## room305

Okay I didn't know there was also prizes for 5+bonus and 4+bonus. The odds of winning these are 874,298 to 1 and 9,992 to 1 respectively.


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## room305

ClubMan said:


> Isn't it the case that there are 5,245,786 permutations of 6 (non repeating) numbers drawn from a pool of 42 (e.g. see here) so the cost of guaranteeing at least a share in the jackpot would be €5,245,786 - i.e. hardly worth it.
> 
> _Post crossed with DirtyH20's._



Yeah but the jackpot isn't the only prize. I've posted the odds of winning the other prizes. Don't know what the payouts on these are though.


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## ClubMan

One way or another you'd need to win €5.2M plus expenses for the efforts involved to make a brute force approach worthwhile. Sounds implausible but I suppose the answer is in the number crunching.


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## room305

ClubMan said:


> One way or another you'd need to win €5.2M plus expenses for the efforts involved to make a brute force approach worthwhile. Sounds implausible but I suppose the answer is in the number crunching.



The original poster mentioned nothing about a brute force approach but rather suggested spending two entire SSIA's on the lotto.

The odds for the different prizes are:

jackpot: 5,245,786 to 1
match 5+bonus: 874,298 to 1
match 5: 24,286 to 1
match 4 plus bonus: 9,992 to 1
match 4: 555 to 1
match 3+bonus: 441 to 1

If he had blown €50k on Saturday's draw, then based on the above odds he could expect to win about €9k in prize money.


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## ClubMan

room305 said:


> The original poster mentioned nothing about a brute force approach but rather suggested spending two entire SSIA's on the lotto.


I was referring to subsequent discussion of the brute force approach.


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## Guest109

there are a few ways to cut the odds,never take 6 consecutive numbers  or even 5,never take 6 even numbers same applies to odd numbers , as it would be very unusual to have 6 consecutive numbers ,you do get the odd time when 6 even or odd numbers do come up but few and far between this happens,most draws seem to favour 3 odd 3 even or 4  2 either way


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## DrMoriarty

My own infallible method means that I've never lost on the Lottery!


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## MugsGame

> started shutting down certain Lotto machines. 'Lotto computer looking for patterns . . ' doesn't mean anything as any line has the same chance as any other line.



The sort of 'patterns' I mean would be a high volume of sequential selections from a single Lotto terminal that might indicate somebody trying to buy the pot -- exactly the case where you admit they've shut down terminals!



> there are a few ways to cut the odds,never take 6 consecutive numbers or even 5,never take 6 even numbers same applies to odd numbers , as it would be very unusual to have 6 consecutive numbers ,you do get the odd time when 6 even or odd numbers do come up but few and far between this happens,most draws seem to favour 3 odd 3 even or 4 2 either way



ainya, this is where I agree with michaelm. Any combination of numbers has the same probability of coming up as any other combination (ignoring mechanical biases in the Lotto machines.). Consecutive numbers come up less often because there are more valid combinations with non-consecutive numbers -- this shouldn't affect your selection! The Lotto 'system' I use is I suspect the same as DrM's.


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## room305

ainya said:


> there are a few ways to cut the odds,never take 6 consecutive numbers  or even 5,never take 6 even numbers same applies to odd numbers , as it would be very unusual to have 6 consecutive numbers ,you do get the odd time when 6 even or odd numbers do come up but few and far between this happens,most draws seem to favour 3 odd 3 even or 4  2 either way



Doing this won't improve your odds even slightly.


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## Damo

Would DrMoriarty or MugsGame care to elaborate on your system?


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## dicey_reilly

Damo said:


> Would DrMoriarty or MugsGame care to elaborate on your system?


 

I'm guessing - don't play, don't lose!


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## Satanta

dicey_reilly said:


> I'm guessing - don't play, don't lose!


No need to guess, it's the only system which guarantees no loss! 
(also guarantees no win, but given the odds it's a successful system).

I've also seen systems which work on the select one ball method ( or [broken link removed]).

In theory it seems ok (at a very quick first glance), but only when you don't investigate it. A little thought and you can see that the risks are just crazy!

[I'll give a few details as I know a few out there will like looking at the theory. Please, don't look at this as some gambling advice, I'm saying it as I've heard it and found it amusing to analyse. I'm sharing it as I assume others might do the same. The potential losses are exponentially more than the potential gains!!!]

Having a quick look through the Lotto page above the "prize limits" seem to have ended this being a runner. Maximum payouts as a total (€2million max, split between all winners) mean that even if the pool is large enough to keep the bet going, the payout may not match the total paid out to date.
The  seem a little more open to abuse regarding the working as a syndicate (it's illegal to do, so huge risks involved) so it could possibly be done there, but again, the losses you could make mean the profits would be wiped out and leave anyone involved hit hard in the pocket!


Basic idea.....

Pick one number (I've heard of people picking the number which hadn't come up in the longest time, but as all balls have an equal odds of coming up in independant draws this seems a bit of a waste of effort).

Back it using a "select one number game" 
(two listed above, I'll go with Lotto54321 for the calculations as the 4/1 odds [bet one, win five - seems to be 4-1] are lower than the 11/2 of PP [I'd assume that means bet one, win six fifty (11/2 odds plus stake back)]. Whatever the odds the same idea holds. It just means you'll stack up your losses a lot faster as you keep "chasing" them.

Then you must "chase" the loss (probably the biggest mistake of most gamblers/investors).
If you bet €1 as your first bet, in order to keep your (potential) profit static you must increase your bet by 25% (odds of 4/1 so a 25% increase in stake gives back the loss to date) [to make the system work (even in theory) you'd have to increase by more than this so your potential profit grows as your timeframe of investment..... I shudder to use that word in this context but I really am using it in the loosest terms.... grows. For the sake of a few sample figures lets say we go with 1.5 as the iteration.

So, we now bet €1 on the first weekend draw, €1.50 (€1*1.5) on the wednesday draw, €2.25 (€1.50*1.5) on the next... and so on.

Each time we increase the bet we increase the (again, I shudder calling this profit but for the sake of argument) profit slightly. A more agressive approach (double each bet or 2.5 times the previous bet) would give a higher profit faster, but mean a bigger starting pot/fund would be needed.

A sample short table of Bet, Cost, Win and Profit can easily be drawn up in Excel...
First column bet. Start with 1 and for the rest of this column make it the previous cell*1.5.
Second column cost. This is equal to bet for the first cell and equal to bet+previous cost for all additional cells.
Third column win. Bet*5 for the Lotto54321 odds.
Fourth column profit. Win - cost.
(Did try and throw in the table for illustration but formatting didn't quite work out)

You can run it for as far as you'd wish to consider.

So, after four weeks (2 draws per week) just less than €50 has been bet (in total). If you get lucky on the fourth week (8th draw) you may win €36 profit, or else you (have to) keep chasing and the potential costs get quick fast.

After two months it's over €1300 (potential profit €877) and after three months it's €33666 (potential profit €22447). You can imagine just how bad it could get (not to mention the difficulty in placing bets this large and the legal side of it).

It's basically the same idea as someone walking into Vegas and betting bigger and bigger (technically not able to do it anymore with table limits) on red until finally they finish up...... the martingale system... plenty of broke gamblers around to prove it doesn't work.

Just wanted to throw it up incase anyone had an interest in thinking about it, I know it passed a few days in maths lectures for myself and some friends not too long ago.


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## MugsGame

Satanta said:


> No need to guess, it's the only system which guarantees no loss!
> (also guarantees no win, but given the odds it's a successful system).



Yep, that's my system. A slight twist is the Lotto Syndicate in work, which I don't participate in, but most people do. Sometimes they tease me that when they win, I'll be one of the few unfortunates left running the show. Of course if everyone else walks out "when" they win, I'll be able to name my price to stay! So either way I win.


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## DrMoriarty

In my case, it's just plain old meanness — or so my wife says!  

She makes up for it whenever she gets the chance...


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## Guest109

well i like a bit of a flutter each week and 20 euro gives me something to look forward to, and i have the 3 draws covered i get a few euros now and then and 20 euros a week is not going to break the bank, i know the old adage live in hope and die in despair comes to mind, but what of it as long as i get my wee thrill on wed and sat night


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## room305

You should save the €20 a week for a year and spend it all in one go on the lotto. It will improve your odds slightly.

I got someone to do that once but they couldn't bring themselves to "waste" all that money on the lotto so they went on a holiday instead.


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## dicey_reilly

room305 said:


> You should save the €20 a week for a year and spend it all in one go on the lotto. It will improve your odds slightly.
> 
> I got someone to do that once but they couldn't bring themselves to "waste" all that money on the lotto so they went on a holiday instead.


 

Actually - betting it all in one go does not increase your odds. It decreases your probable overall return as you are, in effect, betting against yourself. 

It would be like backing Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal each to win the Premiership. You are guaranteed to have at least 3 losing bets. On the other hand - if you back each team once on consecutive seasons - there is a possibility that you will have 2, 3 or 4 winning bets. 

Of course you may have no winning bet but betting against yourself is for the people who back all 6 greyhounds in a race just to have a winning ticket. Occasionally you'll win more than your stake but in the long run - you will lose.

Keep punting!

Dicey


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## room305

dicey_reilly said:


> Actually - betting it all in one go does not increase your odds. It decreases your probable overall return as you are, in effect, betting against yourself.


 
You're wrong you know. In the Premiership there can only _one_ winner, whereas in the lotto there can be several winners (but you share the prize money). So you never compete with yourself.

Bit busy right now but if I get a chance later I'll post the mathematics to support this.


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## dicey_reilly

room305 said:


> You're wrong you know. In the Premiership there can only _one_ winner, whereas in the lotto there can be several winners (but you share the prize money). So you never compete with yourself.
> 
> Bit busy right now but if I get a chance later I'll post the mathematics to support this.


 
Hi 305

I'm open to persuasion but putting it simply - if you select the numbers

1.2.3.4.5.6.     and   7.8.9.10.11.12 

as your 2 selections in the same draw - you cannot win a decent prize (match 6, match 5+bonus, match 5, match 4+ bonus or even match 4 numbers) with both selections as you have 'bet against yourself' i.e. a decent win of 4 numbers with or without the bonus number on one line rules out the possibility of any win on the other line.

If you enter the numbers in separate draws then each set of numbers can (notionally) win every prize.

If there is a flaw in this logic - please let me know......


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## dicey_reilly

room305 said:


> Doing this won't improve your odds even slightly.


 
Hi again 305

I agree with your post on odds improvement as it this popular misconception always makes me laugh. Consider this poker hand:

K♥, 10♠, 8♥, 5♣, 2♣.

Many poker players will swear they were dealt this hand 3 or 4 times in their last weekend home game but it is statistically as common as 

A♥, K♥, Q♥, J♥, 10♥. 

Similarly 1,2,3,4,5,6, is just as likely to win the lottery jackpot as 4,11,16,28,33,41.

(I love this stuff!)

Cheers
Dicey


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## room305

Chances of winning jackpot with 1 combination in 1 draw = 1/5,245,786
Chances of winning jackpot with 2 combinations in 1 draw = 2/5,245,786
Chances of winning jackpot with 2 combinations in 2 draws = 2/5,245,786

***

Looking at the above intuitively it would seem there is no difference. However, over a large number of games you can improve your odds by playing all your combinations in one draw. It is slightly paradoxical but simple to understand logically.

If I bought 5,245,786 different combinations for 1 draw then what are my chances of winning the jackpot? A nailed on 100%.

Now if I bought 5,245,786 different combinations for 5,245,786 draws then what are my chances of winning the jackpot? 100%? No, about 63% as it turns out.

Don't have time to go into it more but if I remember correctly it is called the paradox of N trials. 

So the more draws you play the greater you improve your odds by playing all combinations in one draw rather than spreading the combinations across multiple draws.


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## Guest109

I agree with your post on odds improvement as it this popular misconception always makes me laugh. Consider this poker hand:

K♥, 10♠, 8♥, 5♣, 2♣.

Many poker players will swear they were dealt this hand 3 or 4 times in their last weekend home game but it is statistically as common as 

A♥, K♥, Q♥, J♥, 10♥. 

years ago i used to play poker all weekend and believe it or not in 3 consecutive hands i filled into 3 straights.
on sat night last 2 hands i filled in to 678910 hearts' then 34567 diamonds
first deal on sunday morning' i had 10jqka clubs dealt cold  it was draw poker we played' and no i did not get a fortune from the hands i played maybe 40 or 50 pounds as it was then at the most


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## IanDublin

I was reading about that syndicate recently. 25 of them put in close to a million to cover all eventualities and the prize was 4 million. they won it but 3 others also won in that draw. So instead of getting a return of 120k on their 40k they only got something like 2k or 3k each.
Some members of that syndicat have won that apartment competition that the Evening Herald have ran the last two years.
They spent 25k on Evening Heralds and got enough entries to cover all the lowest bids.


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## Guest109

just wondering how many millionaires have been created by the lotto since it started


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## mmclo

Was dicey reilly one of the syndicate??


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## dontaskme

dicey_reilly said:


> Actually - betting it all in one go does not increase your odds. It decreases your probable overall return as you are, in effect, betting against yourself.
> Dicey


 
Not quite, if you are betting all in one go you should be able to cover all possible 4-number combinations, thereby guaranteeing yourself a small cash prize. If you play 20 euro every week you have no guarantee of any prize ever.


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## Guest109

I see the lotto have added 3 extra numbers from saturday next, that will sure bump up the odds of a jackpot win,this will result in bigger jackpots cost per line also going up,i need to try and tighten up my perm now


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## z107

> Now if I bought 5,245,786 different combinations for 5,245,786 draws then what are my chances of winning the jackpot? 100%? No, about 63% as it turns out.


This is interesting. Is this what you mean?

Example of flipping a coin. Odds of winning = 50%
You enter twice, what are the odds of winning _at least once_
well you could get 
heads/heads
heads/tails
tails/heads
tails/tails
= 3 out of 4 = .75
(which isn't a half)


Just noticed that the odds of winning are asymptotic - never quite reaching 100%. With this in mind, there is probably a point in the lottery where you get diminishing returns. Might be worthwhile to do 100 draws (for example).

I was reading an interesting article where a syndicate all picked different numbers. This improved their odds over syndicates that picked their own numbers. The logic behind this was that by picking different numbers, you more closely matched the random distribution of winning numbers. People who choose numbers would be more likely to pick numbers under 31 (dates) or 19 (dates again) or 3, 7 ('lucky' numbers). These syndicates would have a disproportionate number of 19s for example.


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## Guest109

the lotto has increased it charges by 1/3 my weekly outlay was24 euro now 32 euro


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