The Big Game Lottery (the link blocked by my company’s proxy server) is up to $220 million today. So, a bunch of us in the office decided to buy into the scam. I purchased two lottery tickets, so my odds of winning the grand prize are one in 38 million. (How do they determine these odds without knowing how many lottery tickets will be sold?) I guess we’ll find out how special I really am.
Lotto odds have nothing to do with how many tickets are sold. And your chances aren’t cut in half because of the number of tickets you bought. There is a 1/76,000,000 chance of a certain 6 number combination coming up, no matter what. So your chances of winning are NOT your chances of being the *only* winner. Those odds would be based on a whole lot of stuff they’ll never know. That’s as math-y as I get. And I’m done now.
Ah. That makes sense. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a math class… But I’m sure that if I do win, I’ll write about it here.
My office pool hit the Friday drawing for two numbers. We each threw in a buck, and between 60 of us, we have five bucks to share. That gives us about $0.08 each. With a return on investment like that, why don’t I play more often?