Isn't this a b!tch? Mega Millions jackpot $200 million

[웃 910]

The lottery is for suckers. These are same people who gripe about the price of gas while they blow money gambling away their earnings.

Depends how much money you are spending. I bought a $1 ticket when the jackpot was $200 million. My brother spent $2.

I only buy when it gets to $175 million or more which happens maybe 3 times a year. So I am spending less than $10 a year and the majority of the money the state collects goes to a good cause (schools).

Do I think I will ever win? No. But is it worth spending $5 a year when the jackpot grows to a couple hundred million? Yes.

I agree that the people that spend $40 in tickets each drawing are suckers or when it gets high they spend $100. They have a problem.

[웃 910]

People aren't looking at this very logically. These numbers are no closer than any other 7 numbers that are not the winning numbers. Lottery draws are not sequential (duh) so had 13 not been drawn, there is no logical reason to suppose 12 would have been instead.

Cleo, how can you be so cold and out of touch not to give the guy acknowledgement that his bro's ticket was exactly one number off every number. What are the odds of that happening? It's a major freak out. Just try to imagine if it happened to you!

Cold and out of touch? Further compounding the myths here. Sympathy for something real is one thing, sympathy for a misunderstanding of how lotteries work quite another. At the end of the day, whatever I think it doesn't change reality, and the reality is, he didn't even come close. Now five or six numbers correct and one off, now that would be cause for commiseration.

You are absolutely right that my bro didn't hit one number and therefore didn't even come close to winning. He matched 0 of 6. But....If Warren Buffet said he'd give you a quarter billion dollars if you could guess the 6 numbers he just wrote down, and you missed each number by one, you wouldn't find that odd? Even a little bit peculiar?

I got 3 numbers out of 6 a couple months ago and won $10. I did way better than my brothers ticket cause I got half the numbers correct. But he was off by 1 on each!! That is hysterical and a one in a million coincidence...

[Peikko 1,575]

Yes, I agree it's odd

[SuperDuper! 230]

People aren't looking at this very logically. These numbers are no closer than any other 7 numbers that are not the winning numbers. Lottery draws are not sequential (duh) so had 13 not been drawn, there is no logical reason to suppose 12 would have been instead.

Cleo, how can you be so cold and out of touch not to give the guy acknowledgement that his bro's ticket was exactly one number off every number. What are the odds of that happening? It's a major freak out. Just try to imagine if it happened to you!

Cold and out of touch? Further compounding the myths here. Sympathy for something real is one thing, sympathy for a misunderstanding of how lotteries work quite another. At the end of the day, whatever I think it doesn't change reality, and the reality is, he didn't even come close. Now five or six numbers correct and one off, now that would be cause for commiseration.

You are absolutely right that my bro didn't hit one number and therefore didn't even come close to winning. He matched 0 of 6. But....If Warren Buffet said he'd give you a quarter billion dollars if you could guess the 6 numbers he just wrote down, and you missed each number by one, you wouldn't find that odd? Even a little bit peculiar?

I got 3 numbers out of 6 a couple months ago and won $10. I did way better than my brothers ticket cause I got half the numbers correct. But he was off by 1 on each!! That is hysterical and a one in a million coincidence...

My point was missed entirely here by all the savants in the room here. My point was, that miss cleo was a bit aloof and out of touch to the OP's amazement and excitement that his bro's ticket was exactly one number off all the winning numbers. At no time did I indicate that the off numbers were close to winning. She didnt even acknowledge, "Yea, that is an eerie coincidence to be off exactly one number each."

What happens when a husband is aloof and out of touch when his spouse gets a new haircut, or has a new dress? It's just common courtesy and socially skilled to acknowledge someone's interests and heightened feelings in the moment. I work with a lot of aloof folks, so i see it every day, and its so unsatisfying to live that way in a dead zone.

These one-off losing lotto numbers is like the planets lining up, but on the wrong side of the universe. May he have the lucky numbers next time.

BTW, I like to buy just one ticket per drawing in the superlottoplus each week. I figure, that for one buck, i can be in the game and dream, and its not wasting much money. The odds are so great that buying 10 tickets wont greatly improve your odds of winning. Just one ticket allows lightning to strike.

Peace

[Peikko 1,575]

Basically, I have to post according to your view of what is 'socially acceptable' or risk your diagnosing me as at best socially inept and living like a zombie or worse, one step away from sociopath? I see, well good luck with that

[SuperDuper! 230]

Basically, I have to post according to your view of what is 'socially acceptable' or risk your diagnosing me as at best socially inept and living like a zombie or worse, one step away from sociopath? I see, well good luck with that

Sorry you are having a bad day. None of that applies to what i was saying, so I can't own that.

It's very simple: Treating others in a warm, kind, loving manner as we all like to be treated, as we spin on spaceship earth sharing the human experience together, waiting for death to claim us all.

Peace.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Your poor brother! I suppose there would be someone in a similar situation in almost every lottery draw but the fact that it was your brother in this case with that ticket just brings it home. He might get a cute 'public interest' news story out of it if he was interested and approached the local press. I'm sure some statistician somewhere would come up with the exact odds of that happening. To be so close and still so far.

[Peikko 1,575]

Basically, I have to post according to your view of what is 'socially acceptable' or risk your diagnosing me as at best socially inept and living like a zombie or worse, one step away from sociopath? I see, well good luck with that

Sorry you are having a bad day. None of that applies to what i was saying, so I can't own that.

It's very simple: Treating others in a warm, kind, loving manner as we all like to be treated, as we spin on spaceship earth sharing the human experience together, waiting for death to claim us all.

Peace.

Are you going to continue to try to analyse how I feel and the way I treat others and expect to be treated in return based on a couple of my posts? Honestly? You suck real bad at it by the way.

[alienlovechild 75]

The lottery is for suckers. These are same people who gripe about the price of gas while they blow money gambling away their earnings.

Depends how much money you are spending. I bought a $1 ticket when the jackpot was $200 million. My brother spent $2.

I only buy when it gets to $175 million or more which happens maybe 3 times a year. So I am spending less than $10 a year and the majority of the money the state collects goes to a good cause (schools).

Do I think I will ever win? No. But is it worth spending $5 a year when the jackpot grows to a couple hundred million? Yes.

I agree that the people that spend $40 in tickets each drawing are suckers or when it gets high they spend $100. They have a problem.

Even spending a 1 or dollars is still a waste even if it's small. The higher the pot, the lower chances of winning but most people fall for it because of simple greed. Most lotteries are inefficient and not as much of the money goes to education. Administration, publicity and prizes eat up a lot. Unfortunately, some of the biggest spenders are the uneducated poor folks hoping to strike rich because they don't understand the odds. Those that win frequently end up broke a few years later.

[scandal 951]

The higher the pot, the lower chances of winning

That's not true. The odds of winning the jackpot are exactly the same regardless of whether the prize pool is $1M or $200M.

Megamillions lottery requires you to choose 5 numbers from 56, and then a "Bonus" number from a range of 46.

There is exactly one unique combination that can win.

Hence, the odds are 1 divided by C(56,5) X 46 = 1 in 175,711,536.

That is the fixed and constant probability of winning - 1 in about 175 million.

I'm sure some statistician somewhere would come up with the exact odds of that happening.

Yup. The odds of getting the exact combination Confucian's brother got is exactly the same as the odds of winning:

1 in 175 million. The odds of getting ANY one specific combination is just that.

Such random "freak" occurrences happen all the time. For example, the fact that any of us are here at all is because that one specific sperm cell from our fathers happens to have been the "winner" which fertilized our mother's egg cell that fateful night. Since male ejaculate typically contains approx. 200million to 500 million sperm, each and every one of us can be thought of as a winner of a Megamillions lottery.

[mawilson 2,133]

Now five or six numbers correct and one off, now that would be cause for commiseration.

Five correct numbers and one off pays $250,000, Cleo.

[mawilson 2,133]

That's not true. The odds of winning the jackpot are exactly the same regardless of whether the prize pool is $1M or $200M.

The odds of winning are the same, but the jackpot is split equally among all winning tickets and

statistically there are more winners when the jackpot is $200M because more people play.

Such random "freak" occurrences happen all the time. For example, the fact that any of us are here at all is because that one specific sperm cell from our fathers happens to have been the "winner" which fertilized our mother's egg cell that fateful night. Since male ejaculate typically contains approx. 200million to 500 million sperm, each and every one of us can be thought of as a winner of a Megamillions lottery.

You just had to make it dirty.

[SMR 368]

Well, I'm with Madame Cleo here. It's only remarkable in your mind. It's just like if you are rolling three dice, people notice when you get three sixes but don't think anything if you get a 5, 3, and 1 in that order. But the odds are the same.

The lottery is a stupid tax. If you chose to pay just a little bit of stupid tax, I guess you're just a little bit stupid. On the other hand, if it gets your jollies, I suppose it's no worse than going to see a movie. It's just entertainment.

Remember though, that the lump sum payout is only about 1/4 of the jackpot. After you pay income taxes on it and then pay sales tax on anything you buy with it, it's not quite as much money. I have also heard that most winners are poor again in a couple years. Some people just don't know how to fish so it doesn't matter how many fish you give them.

[Twisted K 2]

i think i would

[HAL 9000 96]

Very correct, Mr Scandal. Each ticket has equal odds of winning the jackpot, whatever the jackpot's size. What increases with increasing numbers of tickets is the probability that one of those sold tickets will be the winner.

If they're split among 100 winners, that's still a heck of a jackpot to be split.