Hi,
I'm interested to find out how many people on here enter the lottery? How often do you enter the draws? Which lottery game is the best and why? How much do you spend? How much have you won? Do you choose your own numbers or is it system generated?
I have purchased 2 Powerball tickets since I have been in Australia. However, just last week someone I know won $27,000 on the lottery at a cost of $60 to enter for that week.
Best story of the day. I met some clowns today but didn't buy any lottery today.I instead scratch my balls for stress release
I did a horrible interview today so I think i will go and buy one too!
I never seen anyone or heard anybody that some one won lottery, its just in news and who knows who win, better avoid it and do charity.
One of my customers won about $120 k in a system 10(?).
He reinvested most in system 14(?)s and won the major and didn't have to split (except with wife) except I think he may have had to pay tax on the second win only it was huge.
Don't shoot me if the numbers are a bit off..
Started mixing with a different crowd and got a tip to buy land, for chips, inland of Pt Douglas. Put most of it into that and 2 years later someone opened up a canal to his spread.
Now he's a squillionaire and still a good bloke!
Only reason he has it is he took risks. Only reason he has a huge fortune still is he stopped taking such big risks with the bulk of it.
If you aren't in it you can't win so I also know I'll never win it.
Why?
I don't indulge because I weren't that stupid to think I'm lucky enough to beat the odds.
Someone usually wins big and we always hear about them, however most lose small yet we never hear about them. Wonder why?
If you comparing Millions to $120k i feel like you comparing elephant and ant. you pay for elephant and you get a ant.
@Meconium: no elephant is not yours but you bet on it,i mean to say you go to buy elephant but you get only an ant, and many times not even ant :)
@sajju:
"One of my customers won about $120 k in a system 10(?).
He reinvested most in system 14(?)s and won the major …. it was huge."
Not sure why someone would feel I was writing about only $120k.
Probably sajju didn't read it past the first couple of words.
The second win was no ant, it enabled him to make substantial speculative land grabs.
Think it about 8 mill, well north of 5 anyway.
That's huge to me and I'm pretty sure most would think too..
He bought a chance to have a share in an elephant along with hundreds of thousands of other people.
Yet he won the elephant and they got nothing and not only accepted their loss but also bought another change the following week.
PS
my friend used his win to fund a large loan probably about $50 mil and made at least about 50 mill (or much more)after costs and tax as profit when the land quadrupled. Without the lottery wins he would never have the opportunity only I note he didn't keep sinking $ in there for a third go at it haha.
Mine costs $31 a week Saturday lotto.
Occasionally we get around $10 back but that's about it
Now we have our own numbers not game enough to stop in case they come out.
This is the exact reason why I just do random numbers each time, I would never forgive myself if my set numbers came out and I didnt have a ticket in that week.
Amen to that.
That's $1500/year
Why not just sock it away and in 10 years have a ripper holiday (or pay off the car loan)?
meh, don't waste your money. apparently you are more likely to get hit by a meteorite or struck by lightning than winning a lottery
Also that's assuming you only play one game which is about a dollar, most people play about 50 games which make your odds a bit better.
A professor from Tulane university said the chances of being killed by a meteorite in your lifetime is 1 in 1.6 million. Put that in perspective apparently 49 people per year across the globe die from meteorites, sounds like bull to me… he's got some assumptions wrong there…
As a statistician, that is the most stupid and misguided interpretation of probability I have seen in my entire life.
It's hard to quantify nature.
No it's not.
The chances of winning something more than your wager is actually pretty good, it's just the jackpot that is very unlikely.
No they're not, it's a negative expected value
Also that's assuming you only play one game which is about a dollar, most people play about 50 games which make your odds a bit better.
What are you talking about? "Makes your odds a bit better". No matter how many games you play, you're still facing the same negative expected value.
E.g. let's say we play a game, I flip a coin and if it's heads, you pay me $1 and if it's tails I pay you $1. The expected value is zero. No matter how many times we play, that's not going to make it into a winning game for you by "making your odds better". Geez.
E.g. let's say we play a game, I flip a coin and if it's heads, you pay me $1 and if it's tails I pay you $1. The expected value is zero. No matter how many times we play, that's not going to make it into a winning game for you by "making your odds better". Geez.
Souinds like someone needs to read Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead :)
As a grad engineer it's extremely hard to quantify nature. That's why we use assumptions and models, all science does that. If we could accurately predict nature I could tell you exactly when a piece of equipment is about to fail to the second. Nature is hard to predict, if it wasn't then the weather man would get it right more of the time.
Sure statistical modelling of nature is easy but does absolutely stuff all for us if we can't use that information. It doesn't tell me when our where something is going to happen, just how likely which isn't always helpful.
As for your chances of winning anything in a lotto I was referring to the chances being better than the jackpot. Yes lotto is not an investment you are likely to lose most of the time.
My question to you is what are your chances of ever earning $20 million in your lifetime at the moment? Pretty much zero eh? You gotta take risks sometimes, they don't always work out but that's life. Lotto I see as low risk, it's pocket money for a extremely low chance to get something.
How do you feel about shares as a statistician?
Apparently people in the USA have a 1/1.2m chance of being struck by lightning in a year. This compares to the most popular lotto game in Australia, Saturday lotto, which has a 1/8.145m chance of winning division 1.
I have have been asking for that for my neighbours for so long. When does it happen.
Someone has to win it! Why not be you?
No they don't… nobody has to win it. If nobody chose the numbers that came out they don't win.
chance of "you" winning the lottery are very low. But chances of "someone" winning the lottery from the pool of players is very high. The chances of "someone" winning the US 2 Billion Powerball were over 90% as around 90% of all combinations were played.
"someone" did win and someday the someone can be you. The chances of someone winning are always very high
I occasionally buy a ticket for ~$20. I've twice won ~$1,500. My grandma won $80,000 when she was in her 80s, after buying weekly lotto tickets for years. She had a little note book where she would write down the numbers each week. My uncle won $45,000.
I know the odds and likelihood of winning (have done post grad stats) yet I still buy them. What if I win?
I know the odds and likelihood of winning (have done post grad stats)
Also says on the back of the ticket.
I know the odds and likelihood of winning (have done post grad stats) yet I still buy them.
It's all about the variance, isn't it? haha!
Some say " Lottery is a tax on people who are weak in statistics".
Almost never unless the lottery prize is huge.
Surely the entire point of becoming very rich is to be extremely rude to beautiful women?
I find that can be achieved without becoming rich. They just don't care as much..
I put about $50 towards it a week, Hey why not? I find that i win more frequently on Powerball and ozlotto. But better odds on the mon, wed, sat. But Saturday seems to have a few too many enteries resulting in more wins which means lower div 1 prize. I quickpick the smallest entry on the app and wish for luck :P
You are in the Ball.
The median Sat Lotto Div 1 payout is "like" 600k, Mon and Wed are less.
Not bad but not enough to get a 2 bedroom apartment, when it used to "make your dream comes true".
Save money for the bigger jackpot.
Thats more than $2,500 a year! Save it and in 10 years you've won $25,000!
Rather have the slightest chance. But hey, You do win a lot of the times. Even though they're small it still go towards another ticket
Fair enough, I hope it works out for you one day….one day!
This!
I prefer less mainstream games of chance - mudcrab racing, cow pat lotto, underground bare knuckle boxing and the odd night spent drinking expensive whiskey amd wagering on russian roulette
They are way more fun than lining up at the local newsagent for a ticket
Now if the local newsagent moved into mudcrab racing, cow pat lotto, underground bare knuckle boxing etc….
Come to my local cafe, their game of chance is "win for your life" ;)
You Could tape a mudcrab to your computer moniter
Or a pistol with one in the chamber if you prefer
I won $40 the other night betting that the Polish would beat the Finns in women's soccer.
My work does a Lotto syndicate.
I offered to organise a 'Flush your cash down the toilet' syndicate but strangely had no takers - despite my syndicate proving to be just as successful as theirs.
Don't know why.
How about a system where they line up and, for every dollar, you give them a voucher worth ~85c?
Everyone can feel like a winner!
We have a "lotto syndicate", it is just a way to spend 2 buck every now and then and to dream what the bosses will do when nobody shows up for work 1 day :). But then again, we gather from a lot of people and with the winnings you cannot even but a house in Sydney.
Sorry to be the devil advocate, just to warn off kids from reading this thread.
All "gaming" addicts start from little win or big win from a friend of a friend.
My nan took the same numbers every Saturday for decades. Occasionally on the big draws I do her numbers and hope her ghost can rig the draw for me. She'd be up for that. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened yet. It doesn't stop me from mentally spending that money though. I have it all planned out depending on the epicness of the win LOL. Amazingly enough, my wishlist items aren't that flamboyant.
Only buy if you afford it on your weekly budget. Like spend 10% of it or less. Don't spend like 50% or more obviously. I know my dad plays regularly I tell him the odds but he just says someone gotta win it. I think its the hope that makes the lotto players go on despite knowing it's easier to get hit by lightning. Whenever somebody win millions they just think that could have been me
10% is way too much but your point is valid. If buying lottery tickets means you can't buy essentials and go into debt then that's a massive disaster. If the opportunity cost was just saving it then it isn't the end of the world (but maybe not the best idea).
Yes the odds are very slim BUT you have to be in to win.
I keep my costs down (actually saving around 70% each week) by playing the minimum number of games. Too hard to do when buying from a lotto outlet as you need to know the minimum number of games allowed and you have to manually fill out a card so of course the easy way is to select one of the quick pick options…clever marketing to make you buy more product. If you buy the smallest quick pick option for each game each week you have spent $41.30. Buy online at the official Tatts website and its easy to select the minimum number of games, you can randomly fill them in. Total cost for the week $12.55 !
It still amazes me why the cost of lotto seems to go up each year. They say its to keep up with CPI but in reality…..$1 million dollars was a lot of money 10 years ago and still is.
I love a guy who has a system for playing the lotto :).
Occasionally.
If I do, I usually buy system tickets, so if I win, I get more then just $10
I had to up my base limit to $30mil because it kept hitting $20mil too often. I only spend between $20-$30 on a quickpick when it reaches my limit. The odds of hitting randomly picked numbers to actually picked numbers is the same I think… or at least both are pretty damn long to not be worth the bother of selecting 'special' numbers. But yes I am willing to spend that much on a bit of daydreaming and hope occasionally.
It's $30mil next week so I guess more lotto for you :)
Thanks for the headsup! I don't read the newspaper, watch TV ads or walk past the tatts kiosk in Spencer St train station any more so I actually never know it reaches my limit :) Only when a really huge one hits theage.com.au
Correct. Whether you have selected the numbers yourself or select them randomly does not affect the outcome. In fact, the winning numbers from the week before have exactly the same chance of coming up
Unless the system is corrupt, in which case it is probably not the best thing to be 'investing' in.
I am married
this is my lottery
not until cash in own bank account : )
My dad has been buying a set of numbers and spend about $50 weekly for the past 30 years. So in total, he has spent approx. $78000 to date. Hence I said to him if you saved up this money, you would have "won" $78000 by now. He brushes me off and said, I am aiming for the millions! What is $78000 compared to a million? Hahahahahaha…
Well,
78000/1000000 = 0.078
0/1000000 = 0
He'd be much closer to a million having not spent the money.
Also, if he'd put $78,000 in the stock market 30 years back he'd have round a million now. Some risks have a higher expected pay off than others.
True, but to have obtained that 78k 30 years ago they would have had to take out a loan - and the interest would have negated most/all of the gains from the stock market.
@macrocephalic: True, if he just invested $50 weekly in the share market, I'd expect he'd only have a few hundred thousand by now. But that's what I'd expect, not the best case scenario. If he followed Forrest Gump's investment advice and bought into "that fruit company" (Apple), he'd be beyond rich by now.
But how many times in 30 years did he win the smaller divisions?
No
yep, I usually play powerball or oz lotto when the prize is over $15 million. Only way I'll ever be able to afford a house
Get a better job (or go to the USA) (",)
I do not gamble. I went through a fad in my experimental teen years buying scratchies because I heard that they paid out more than lottery tickets. For me it was 1:6 chance of winning another free scratchie, 1:10 chance to win less than the price of my ticket, 1:50 chance to win more than price of my ticket but under $20, never won $50 or more. My parents would give out tickets to kids and relatives so I had heaps of tickets to count and measure probabilities.
Looking back I found scratchies was a lot less financially damaging and was more emotionally rewarding for my personality type than the other forms of gambling like lottery tickets and poker machines.
I'm a statistics kind of person. Scratchies gave me instant feedback to calculate cost of investment versus reward. Unlike lottery tickets I didn't have to wait a week to find out if I won.
To keep a track of the history of my expenses on scratchies I would keep all of my past scratchie tickets in a stack/box for a year. Every scratchie displays its price in the upper corner (eg. $2, $5, $20) so they act as a receipt and was easy to tally up my losses. Each time I felt the urge to gamble and buy another scratchie I would:
1) go to newsagents and buy the scratchie.
2) scratch the panels.
3) the ticket usually paid nothing or was less than the price of the scratchie.
4) I would add the spent scratchie to my historic pile of used scratchies.
5) This updated pile would trigger me to want to count up all my recent/previous tickets to see if I had won overall. They didn't, it was always an overall loss.
Being a statistics minded person I unintentionally trained myself out of scratchie gambling by consistently+immediately showing myself the consequence
of a $2 scratchie ticket. ie. always a loss.
I know I think very differently to the rest of my family and my local community. There's an old saying "What's the definition of insanity? Repeating the same thing over and over but expecting a different result". After counting the used scratchie pile it kept reinforcing the appropriate negative emotion.
Sounds like you have a compulsive personality… first the compulsion to gamble, then the compulsion to keep every ticket you purchased. While it's great you trained yourself out of gambling, you didn't need to buy all those tickets to find out you gambling resulted in a loss… a lottery where people win more than they lose wouldn't be a very effective business!
Yes, Powerball and only if there's change left from shopping and nothing over $5. My cousins won $12 million 10 years ago but they haven't done anything with their money besides a bigger house and a new car which they still drive. We still only get a 16 pack of Ferrero Rocher for Christmas.
To quote Phonte from Little Brother, "They say money change you, but money don't change you, it just makes you more of what you already are".
sounds like your cousins are smart people. There was a static that lotto winners go bankrupt at a much higher rate than normal people (although it might be an urban myth).
Tell your cousin I am a Nigerian Prince seeking a business partner…
My college maths teacher always said that 'The lottery is a tax on people who don't understand maths'.
A better idea would be to put all he money you would have spent on the lottery into some kind of investment, long-term deposit, supra whatever.
I don't think buying an imported car would be wise…
'The lottery is a tax on people who don't understand maths'.
I had coworker once who used to say the same thing but then when we had a work syndicate going he would buy in. I called him on his obvious hypocrisy but he replied that he wasn't playing to win. The couple of dollars he spent was insurance against the rest of us winning. No consolation being right about the maths if that one in however many million actually comes up and you're the only one still at work while all your colleagues kick back in early retirement.
This is the same reason I joined work syndicates over the years. I can cop a few dollars a week if it means I don't regret not being a part of it if it does come up (which it never did obviously).
I live in Europe. The only time I buy a ticket is in a euro millions lottery. After it has jack potted 9 times without a winner, it must payout the following week - so if no one takes he 1st division then 2nd division winners share the jackpot. Odds dramatically improved… But still very close to zero!
I do it every time religiously with the same numbers and quick pick for almost 19 years, this is my only bad habit(gambling). Could have save a bit $$ if I don't spend it on lotto , but hey ..this is my retirement fund (sooner I hope). Something that I can dream of…
That 19 years of lottery tickets, into your super, would probably fund another year or two of retirement already.
I know right… But hey I need to dream :)
I relised during early UNI years the chances of winning it big in lottery is quite slim.
I therefore decided to rack up 4 months worth of lottry spending and 'gamble' in the fx market. After each winning I would keep aside 50% and invest the other 50% … Made it big with the rise of the aud to $1(buy order) and again with a sell otder when the price hit $1 (sold my order at 70cents)..at 100:1 margin, I'll let you do the maths:)
If someone works out how much you won plz tell me :)
I have no idea what any of that means but sounds like you made a tidy profit
Yes. I spend $20 on games if the jackpot is over $30 million and $100 on games if the jackpot is over $60 million.
If you're going to gamble, lotto would have to be one of the absolute worst ways to do it. The house margin in lotto is about 40%. Yep, for every $1 you gamble, the lotto keeps 40 cents. Gets worse with the higher payout powerball style games.
This seems crazy to me, why would you spend money on lotto? Am I missing something?!?
You can lose much less money (lower house margins) on just about any other type of gambling. And having seen the destructive consequences of gambling, starts out as small wins and snowballs from there, I'd stay away from all gambling.
This seems crazy to me, why would you spend money on lotto? Am I missing something?!?
Variance. You're only taking into account expected returns.
You can choose to put your $1 into two games
1) Coin Flip - if it lands on a heads, you get $1.90, if it lands on a tails, you lose $1. Thus, the expected value is 0.5 * 1.90 = $0.95, thus, you lose 5c per play long run.
2) Lotto - if you get the numbers, you go away with a million.
The $1 is probably so disposable to you, you might as well chuck it on the lotto. Gambling isn't just about expected value, it's also about variance.
But the variance extends both ways…
No, your maximum loss either way is $1
@paulsterio: On a single play. But over multiple iterations, variance allows you to have higher returns than expected, but it can also allow you to have lower returns than expected. If expected return is 80%, then for someone to win 100,000% there must be equal losses by people getting lower than 80% returns. Regression toward the mean and all that.
Yes, that is correct, however you're confusing the expectation with the standard deviation.
Lottery is a long run losing game because of negative expectation, so you are correct in that (in the long run), the amount spent will exceed the amount won.
That has nothing to do with spread or standard deviation. Essentially, when you look at the standard deviation of a single game, where you are only spending $1, you 'might as well' try your luck to win big - that's essentially what variance is all about. You will most likely lose, but the small chance that you might win big makes it worthwhile.
@paulsterio: Except that "playing" the lottery isn't typically a single $1 bet. People who play the lottery are subject to the mean. They typically spend $10-50 each week and this adds up to big amounts over time and many entries.
The mean is inescapable.
Except that "playing" the lottery isn't typically a single $1 bet. People who play the lottery are subject to the mean. They typically spend $10-50 each week and this adds up to big amounts over time and many entries.
Which is why playing the lottery is a losing game.
I don't think you quite understand the underlying argument that I'm making. The assumption in microeconomics is that utility functions are quasiconcave, I am arguing that it is possible, over some limited amount, for utility functions to be convex.
Ask yourself this question. Let's play a game - I have 1,000,000 tokens in a hat, one of which is a 'winning token'. If you select the winning token, you win $1,000,000. How much would you pay to play this game?
The fair value would, of course, be 1/1,000,000 * 1,000,000 = $1. This means that in the long run you will break even if you keep buying in for $1 every game.
Thus, if I was selling tickets for $5, then it would be a long run winning game for me, but people might buy in at this to take advantage of the fact that it is necessarily a very risky investment. The higher the variance, the better for them. The traditional concept of relative risk aversion or absolute risk aversion no longer applies.
It's exactly the opposite of insurance. Think about car insurance. It's a negative expectation for you (obviously, otherwise insurance companies would be broke), but you are willing to pay to reduce your variance. Why do you take out insurance, because the loss is so great that you're willing to suffer a negative expectation to offset that variance.
This is the opposite situation, the gain is so great that you're willing to suffer a negative expectation to take advantage of that variance.
The mean is inescapable.
This statement shows that you have little understanding of probability. Yes, what you say is true (i.e. the central limit theorem), this is why lottery companies make money, but it has little to do with risk preferences.
We can argue about it, and I'm not even saying I'm right, but I've dedicated my entire adult life and career to studying this precise topic.
I can explain it to you using theory, but it's very complex and really requires a pretty solid understanding of microeconomics and Bayesian inference. Ultimately, I'll give you a simple example. Let's say that a game of lotto is $1.
You're so poor that you only have $1 per week. You literally can't buy anything with that $1 that would make you happy, so you 'might as well' play the lottery in the off chance that one day you'll make it big.
Yes, this seems 'irrational', but my entire argument is that it isn't actually irrational because the way we analyse preferences and utility in economics doesn't capture all of these effects.
@paulsterio: I know my probability.
Good example with the insurance, but to me, loss prevention is an entirely different equation to the utility of the chance of a large windfall. You insure things you cannot afford to replace. (I.e need a car, but I couldn't replace my car if it was stolen. Or I could not afford to crash into a Ferrari)
Agree, if I had a 1 US dollar left in my wallet and was flying back home to Australia in an hour, then I might be tempted to chuck it in a pokie at the airport. But I'd probably put it in the charity bag.
And there are probably many other little examples of when buying a single lottery ticket may make the tiniest bit of sense. But on the whole, playing the lotto doesn't.
I know my probability.
Could you explain the statement that the 'mean' is inescapable. It just seems like one of those things that people say without really understanding what they're talking about.
I'm assuming that you're referring to the consistency/unbiasedness properties of your return (i.e. a sample mean, so to speak, so CLT) as an estimator for the true expected return? That is true, which is why lottery companies make a lot of money, but I don't think you've translated that into the real world well.
So why are you happy spending, say $1000, on insurance which pays you out $50,000 when the chance of you crashing is less than 1/50 per year?
You do that because you have a negative marginal utility of income, right? The more income you're making, the less an extra dollar is worth to you. Thus, a 'loss' of $50,000 is actually a greater loss than 50 * 1,000. Most people who make a decent living have a negative marginal utility of income.
However, I don't think you quite get the fact that for people who are EXTREMELY poor, they could potentially have a positive marginal utility of income, in that a dollar gained might increase their utility by +5, but a dollar lost will only decrease their utility by -3.
Microeconomics up until even a PhD level rarely explores this and people are almost always assumed to have a constant marginal utility of income, but it conveniently ignores people who are so poor that the amount of money they have is practically meaningless.
Take it this way, if you go to a kid in Africa who has $1 which he can't use on anything and won't really help him all that much in easing his poverty and you ask if he wants to spend that $1 on a 1/10,000,000 chance to win $1,000,000 and change his life, even though it's a 'bad bet' by our standards, I'm sure he'll take it.
@paulsterio: The extremely poor should play the lottery… riiiight. You've got some messed up equations there. A dollar to a poor person is worth a shitload.
You do that because you have a negative marginal utility of income, right? The more income you're making, the less an extra dollar is worth to you. Thus, a 'loss' of $50,000 is actually a greater loss than 50 * 1,000. Most people who make a decent living have a negative marginal utility of income.
What if I don't have 50,000. Then I need to insure against that risk. Insurance against negative outcomes is wildly different to paying for the chance to win a lot of money.
The extremely poor should play the lottery… riiiight. You've got some messed up equations there. A dollar to a poor person is worth a shitload.
No, no, you've got this all wrong. I'm not saying they should. I'm explaining why they do. Nobody ever should play lottery, it's a losing game, we agree on that.
Problem gamblers are all poor people, you don't see anybody who is rich and a gambling addict do you? Very few, if any. Why is that? Refer to my explanation.
What if I don't have 50,000. Then I need to insure against that risk. Insurance against negative outcomes is wildly different to paying for the chance to win a lot of money.
No it's not, it's simply the flip side of the coin. Saying that makes me feel like you don't understand probability again.
@paulsterio: ahh ok. So people who don't value the money that they have should play lotto. I can agree with that.
I do like the insurance comparison. It got me thinking. But I don't see it as a valid justification for lotto. I can afford not to win lotto. I can't afford to crash into a Ferrari or make someone a quadriplegic. So I insure against that chance.
Everything in life is probability. Even going to work and earning a wage, there is the chance you might not get paid, hello DSE. Or even putting your money in the bank could be considered a game of chance. You might not get it all back due to economic conditions. yes, probability is low. Almost as low as winning a lotto jackpot. I believe these "bets" make sense. I can't see many scenarios where playing the lotto does.
I buy a "win for life" scratchie every now and again.
I take it to my work desk and sticky tape it to the edge of my computer monitor.
It sits there until things get too much. Along the way, I sometimes day dream of what I would do with some extra cash, holidays I would take, bosses I would insult etc.
Eventually, some clown at work pushes me too far, and I dramatically rip the ticket down and start scratching.
If I won at this moment, it would be the sweetest victory in all of human history.
So far I have not won. So I go and buy another scratchie and repeat the process.
I invest approximately $10 per annum in this bit of day dreaming and drama - it is well worth it.