What Are the Odds?
Did you guys see this? What are the odds? Talk about luck.....
Quote: Asswhoopermcdaddyhttps://gma.yahoo.com/man-beats-one-9-7-trillion-odds-win-205355504--abc-news-personal-finance.html
Did you guys see this? What are the odds? Talk about luck.....
Just for comparison, if you were playing video poker, the odds of getting dealt a spade royal flush, twice in a row, is about 6.77 trillion to one.
Quote: mipletSummery: Bad math. It's like me buying my favorite lotto numbers of 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 early Monday morning. Then, forgetting that I bought that ticket already , I buy the same ticket Monday afternoon. Then claiming I had a 1 in x2 chance of winning the lotto twice instead of just 1 in x.
I don't understand what your post is negating.
Quote: dwheatleyThe lucky guy didn't win the lottery twice in a row, he played his same numbers twice by accident. The odds of him winning the lottery are the same as anyone else, 1 in x. Which I guess it about 1 in 3 million for this lottery.
Any Yahoo story that involves numbers is probably wrong. I saw another one this morning comparing the amount of sugar in foods to a glazed Dunkin Donut. What they didn't mention is that they were comparing it to a Munchkin (donut hole) and not an actual donut.
Quote: dwheatleyThe lucky guy didn't win the lottery twice in a row, he played his same numbers twice by accident. The odds of him winning the lottery are the same as anyone else, 1 in x. Which I guess it about 1 in 3 million for this lottery.
Agreed. Saying this guy beat 1 in 9 trillion odds is like saying a convenience store in California beat odds of 5,300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000-1 by winning its old 6/49 Lotto five times...because it had printed six tickets by mistake with the same six numbers on it, and when the person purchasing the ticket refused to pay for more than the one she had asked for, the store's policy was to buy the other five tickets itself.
Note that those were the only six winning tickets in that draw (the jackpot was "only" $12 million); the woman claimed, "Those tickets should have been voided and I should get the whole $12 million", but the lottery said, "There are six winning tickets, and all six were paid for, so the six tickets split the jackpot."
Quote: ThatDonGuyAgreed. Saying this guy beat 1 in 9 trillion odds is like saying a convenience store in California beat odds of 5,300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000-1 by winning its old 6/49 Lotto five times...because it had printed six tickets by mistake with the same six numbers on it, and when the person purchasing the ticket refused to pay for more than the one she had asked for, the store's policy was to buy the other five tickets itself.
Note that those were the only six winning tickets in that draw (the jackpot was "only" $12 million); the woman claimed, "Those tickets should have been voided and I should get the whole $12 million", but the lottery said, "There are six winning tickets, and all six were paid for, so the six tickets split the jackpot."
I had never heard this story, but had wondered if something like it had ever happened. With the woman offered the opportunity to buy the duplicate tickets, I suppose that completely undermined her case, but who would buy them? Kind of strange the lottery even allows the store to do that, since the store gets a percentage of every sale; they're essentially getting an exclusive discount (and an edge not available to the public). Seems like it should be against the rules as it's easily exploitable, either by the store itself, or by offering a discount on bulk sales to someone so they get that edge.
Unsold tickets should be voided.
Quote:Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the odds of winning the lottery were in fact 985,517 to one because Stokes picked the same numbers for his two lottery tickets. The odds would have been 9.7 trillion to one if he had picked different numbers for the two tickets.
ROFL
Quote: beachbumbabsI had never heard this story, but had wondered if something like it had ever happened. With the woman offered the opportunity to buy the duplicate tickets, I suppose that completely undermined her case, but who would buy them? Kind of strange the lottery even allows the store to do that, since the store gets a percentage of every sale; they're essentially getting an exclusive discount (and an edge not available to the public). Seems like it should be against the rules as it's easily exploitable, either by the store itself, or by offering a discount on bulk sales to someone so they get that edge.
Unsold tickets should be voided.
Having worked in a, "Smoke Shop," that sold lottery tickets once upon a time, I can say two things:
1.). The merchant makes a surprisingly low percentage of the lottery revenues, such that the merchant can't sell itself tickets at anything approaching an advantage in most lottery games, with a couple notable exceptions.
2.) When we were trained, the store emphasized that we must be very careful, particularly with the printed tickets, because of the policy, "You f*** the ticket up, you bought the ticket." I don't know if it's still the case, but a decade ago, once the sale was processed, there was no means by which it could even be reversed.
Quote: dwheatleyThe lucky guy didn't win the lottery twice in a row, he played his same numbers twice by accident. The odds of him winning the lottery are the same as anyone else, 1 in x. Which I guess it about 1 in 3 million for this lottery.
Yes, BUT the act of playing the same number twice by accident is a rare event itself. Say 1 in a million people who play a lottery forget that they already bought a ticket with their lucky numbers and play them again.
So the odds are indeed astronomical for a guy that by mistake bought twice a ticket with the same lottery numbers to win the lottery.
I am not talking about the odds of this particular lottery, but lotteries in general.
