Go for broke on the Lotto

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

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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.

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

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.

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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.

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