BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?

Subject: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 01:22 AM

Last night's Lottery draw was a triple rollover, estimated prize: £17 million.

I had one ticket with 3 numbers (= £10 prize), for 1st time for nearly 2 months.

So someone tell me please:

Was I lucky or unlucky?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 02:05 AM

Statistically speaking - both.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: GUEST,MarkS(on the road)
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 08:16 AM

There is a higher probability of being struck by lightning than of winning the lottery.
You will have a better outcome if you save up the money you usually spend on lottery tickets, and take your significant other out for a nice dinner!

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 10:12 AM

Mark ~~ I am not a fool & am fully cognisant of the odds involved. And my 'significant other' happens to be recently dead.

But I expect your comments were well-meant.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 01:21 PM

Well in terms of your lottery win you are significantly luckier than us! We haven't had a single number for over a year which must be some sort of record and in all the years we have been doing the lottery we have only won £10 a couple of times and about £30 once! But with each pound spent there is always that little glimmer of hope!

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 01:44 PM

Well, a £10 prize on a (I assume) £1 ticket is clearly a win. If you've spent £8 over the past two months and this is your only prize, you are still ahead. I wish that my record was as good. On the other hand, what would I do with $175 million, anyway?

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 02:07 PM

Well, art, if you didn't want it you could always give it to me.

Ducks ~ your record is indeed sad. I nearly always seem to get the frustrating 2 #s. I have in fact won about £400 over the years, incl £37 for a 4 # ticket late last year. Still well down in total, but the glimmer glimmers on.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 04:14 PM

I only play on the day nearest my birthday. Never won anything.

TSO has premium bonds and consistently won £50 every year from 2003 until 2009. Last 2 wins have been £25.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 04:53 PM

I am the world's unluckiest LOTTO winner. For years I played the same numbers and YES, I hit the big one. 5 Numbers plus the supplementary = first prize, a few million. I danced up to the candy store where I purchased the ticket and breathlessly shared the news with Mr. Kim promising him a healthy chunk of the proceeds.
Poor Mr.Kim. In broken English he had to explain that the rules had changed a week earlier. The supplementary no longer counted for first prize.

I won about two thousand.
Story of my life.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 05:15 PM

I have had 3 winning tickets out of 30 in my life. I was also struck by lightning 4 years ago.

I'll buy a ticket tonight and let you know if my misfortune holds

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 05:18 PM

I'm always amused that lottery ticket sales go way-way up when the prize money gets really high. The more tickets that are bought, the longer the (already astronomical) odds of winning. Also, you hear about large groups of co-workers pooling their money to buy large numbers of tickets, which increases the odds but reduces the per-share winnings.

I "play" (i.e., discard a dollar bill) only occasionally, and most often do so the week AFTER a large sum has been won and the prize-money sum is reduced to the designated baseline amount. This "smallest" prize in the multi-state Powerball drawing is well over a million bucks, which would be enough for me. Hell, I'm not greedy!

(I realize that, by participating at all, ever, I might seem to some to be "mathematically illiterate." Not so. I'm cognizant of the odds, but I also know that only those who play can win, and people do win.)

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 05:57 PM

Depends on how the selection is made. Your assumption only applies if one ticket is drawn from all the entered tickets.

If the numbers on the tickets are the selection criteria, then this delusion is widely held, but is wrong. The probability of selecting the particular set of numbers is unchanged, no matter how many entries are lodged.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Apr 10 - 11:40 PM

Sinsull: I don't think 5+Bonus# has ever qualified for a Jackpot ~~ one has always needed all 6 #s for that & if no-one got them there would be a rollover; 5+Bonus has always brought a fair, but nowhere near Jackpot, win. In your week, I take it your win was not so enormous because several people got the same so the prize-money dedicated to that section had to be shared: there have been weeks when the 5+Bonus prize was really good, way up into 5 figures, because only one person had held the #s ~~ & one occasion I recall when about 15 shared the jackpot but there was only one 5+bonus winner who ∴ actually got more than the top winners! But that is obviously rare.

It is, after all these possible variables that make it a LOTTERY!?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: Commander Crabbe
Date: 16 Apr 10 - 06:48 AM

Michael

Spooky indeed!

I too am of the "not won much over the years" brigade.

My salutation on the other thread was generated randomly as a wish for good luck and not aimed at anyone in particular.

Regards

Chris

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Apr 10 - 07:18 AM

I once found a ticket in the street. It didn't win.

But I had numerous strategies in place to deal with a win. And the ensuing debacle.

One was to hope the looser chose a random selection and didn't note the numbers.

How mean am I?

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Apr 10 - 04:51 PM

It did in NY State, MGM. Maybe late 70s when my "win" happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 16 Apr 10 - 05:33 PM

My problem with the lottery is that everyone I know who does it has already planned what to do with a huge win, and they are things they could never do from their own resources. Therefore, many people are wishing for an unobtainable future, and living in discontent with their nacctual lives.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Apr 10 - 05:55 PM

"Therefore, many people are wishing for an unobtainable future, and living in discontent with their actual lives."

This is a bit of thread drift, I suppose, but that's a good description of a certain large segment of the American voting public. They support economic policies that favor corporations and the richest of the rich, because they don't want to pay taxes if and when they become fabulously wealthy. (Remember "Joe the Plumber"?)

The fact that these policies are actually injurious to them in their own real lives is irrelevant, because they live in a fantasy world. And, yes, they are indeed "living in discontent," and everything they stand for, if implemented, is only going to make them even more discontented.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 10:27 AM

Not a drift, pop, but a good shout. The two are obviously linked...re-read 1984, it's all there, including a nayional lottery and mass produced entertainment.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 08:01 PM

"a good description of a certain large segment of the American voting public. They support economic policies that favor corporations and the richest of the rich, because they don't want to pay taxes if and when they become fabulously wealthy"

Americans are really poor, but always think they are rich.

Aussies are really rich, but always think they are poor.


Consequently, We Aussies actually practice such things as Social Medicine, which greedy middle class (that have been brainwashed by those with an agenda that profits from this attitude) Yanks despise, most especially those who WILL benefit most from them when they are old and really broke.

So eventually the US MUST become a 'failed state" - probably not while I'm alive - but by then the 'rich' will have seen the signs and left, leaving only their most stupid brainwashed followers to wallow in the shit they helped make. And the rest of the world - apart from those who will just say in good South Park tradition "Har! Har!" - will wonder just WHY they should now 'help'... somewhat like the little hen who made the bread...


:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: Smokey.
Date: 17 Apr 10 - 08:36 PM

The lottery is no more than a tax on stupidity.. someone once said.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: Allan C.
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 06:04 AM

When I worked at a convenience store I found it hilarious that so many people would hand me so much money in exchange for worthless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. I recall one particular customer whose only foundation for conversation was to present some manner of excuse as to why he didn't win "the big one". He would ramble on about how he and his daughter were driving down some street the day before and saw what later turned out to be the winning number in the form of a house number - or some such story. He would then curse himself for not having bet on that number.

Then there were the customers who would purchase a handful of scratch-off tickets and then go sit in their vehicles and industriously scratch the tickets, one by one and then repeat the process over and over. Some would spend at least a couple of hours in this process. Even if they won a few dollars, they would sink their winnings into the purchase of even more tickets.

Ah, well. I suppose it gives them all something to do while they are hoping for their "ship" to come in!

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 08:08 AM

Its certainly a tax on the poor.

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Apr 10 - 10:08 PM

So far as I know, Alaska doesn't hold a lottery. It does have 'pull tabs'; not sure how they work but I think you get the amount on the spot; I don't think there is anything further.

In Oregon they have a lottery of some sort. I don't remember whether the numbers you scratch off are entered in the drawing.

For awhile I amused myself by buying blocs of tickets to give as gifts, letting the recipient have the fun of scratching them off. As far I know, the highest number they ever 'won' was two dollars. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Lottery ~ lucky or not?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Apr 10 - 04:52 PM

"...you hear about large groups of co-workers pooling their money to buy large numbers of tickets, which increases the odds but reduces the per-share winnings."

Surely one reason for this is that, if you do win big, you'll still have a few friends who are in the same position.