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You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery

53 pointsby jamespetercookalmost 2 years ago

12 comments

forintialmost 2 years ago
Not a &quot;win&quot; in the financial aspect of the game:<p>&quot;... they matched just two balls on three of the tickets, the reward being three lucky dip tries on a subsequent lottery, each of which came to nothing. Since a ticket costs £2, the experiment represented a loss to the authors of £54.<p>This unfortunate incident therefore serves both as a verification of our result and of the principle that one should expect to lose money when gambling.&quot;
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watsonalmost 2 years ago
Matt Parker video on the subject: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;zYkmIxS4ksA" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;zYkmIxS4ksA</a>
thebruce87malmost 2 years ago
It’s currently £2 per play so £54 for 27 tickets.<p>Matching two numbers on the last draw was rewarded with a £5 prize and a free lucky dip, but I think the £5 was only because it had rolled-over too many times.
keepamovinalmost 2 years ago
27 <i>support</i> tickets? Like...<p>1: <i>Hi there! Sorry to bother you but I think I have a winning ticket for the Powerbrits Billions Megapounds but I seem to have received an error at the cashier while checking my ticket...</i><p>2: <i>Hi, me again! Yes, in response, I made sure the ticket was for the correct lottery. And yes, the cashier was listening to me when I asked them to check it...</i><p>3: <i>Hello, hope you&#x27;re well! I&#x27;m working on getting you that cashier screenshot as well as a picture of my ticket. Just wanted to reiterate I&#x27;m sure it&#x27;s a winner, and there seems to be a bug in the code...</i><p>4: <i>Hi there! Sorry I can&#x27;t take a &#x27;clearer picture with the ticket actually visible and readable&#x27; because that&#x27;s the bug in the ticket I&#x27;m telling you about! Yes, again I&#x27;m sure it was a winner, I picked the numbers myself! And now I would not like a complimentary replacement ticket for the next drawing, thank you very much! Please don&#x27;t close this support ticket as completed, too, alright? What I&#x27;d like is ...</i><p>[[ 21 support tickets later ]]<p>24: <i>Hi friend! Yes, I&#x27;m quite sure the numbers on my ticket are 6-9-11-15-17-21, the exact numbers of the winning draw I&#x27;m hoping you&#x27;ll help me collect! You can see from my recent photo that the 1 is clearly visible in a number of places and if you turn it to the left, you&#x27;ll see what looks like a 5 and 7 as well. Clearly the rest of the positions have some bug where the numbers become unclear and appear to temporarily represent other numbers, but I didn&#x27;t write them unclearly in the original (sorry I misplaced that!), so it is clearly a bug in your software! You know what, friend? F--- this, I have been nothing but reasonable. I think I might have to go to Hacker News and tell everybody about the terrible things that have happened as a result of this atrocious run around you&#x27;ve been giving me!</i><p>[[ 2 support tickets later ]]<p>27: <i>Oh, hi, Senior Support Analyst Manager Derrick, thank you so much for your warm and accommodating email! Why, yes, that would be delightful, I will gladly accept monthly part-payments, less taxes, deposited into my standard Bank of Ireland (Maldives) account. Terribly good of you, if I say so myself! You have a fantastic day, Derrick! I&#x27;ll be sure to fill out that little &quot;Support Questionnaire&quot; you sent me in your last correspondence, too (probably from St Tropez idk). Fantastic stuff!</i>
sircastoralmost 2 years ago
I have a friend who once described state lotteries as “a tax on people who can’t do math”. That’s not particularly kind or fair. To me the combination of desperation that people feel that a lottery win would resolve a lot of their problems, and how many state-run programs are dependent on lottery funds to continue to function, is indicative of how bad an idea a lottery is.<p>It’s a trap for people who are desperate, trying to survive and a band-aid for a budget shortfall because people don’t want to pay taxes otherwise.
FaisalAbidalmost 2 years ago
Matt Parker did a great video on this recently <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=zYkmIxS4ksA">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=zYkmIxS4ksA</a>
columnalmost 2 years ago
On this theme, I really enjoyed the movie &quot;Jerry and Marge go large&quot; with Bryan Cranston. Based on a true story!
gaddersalmost 2 years ago
If you were going to run a syndicate with 27 entrants, would you be better off buying these 27 tickets or a random bunch of 27 tickets in terms of getting a jackpot?<p>Or is there no difference in terms of likelihood of getting a significant win?
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greenpizza13almost 2 years ago
This kind of thinking is also explored deeply in Jordan Ellenberg&#x27;s book &quot;How Not to be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking&quot;. Great read.
duffyjpalmost 2 years ago
I&#x27;ve never purchased a lottery ticket but I do get a small reduction in my state property taxes from those who do, so I guess I win once a year.
sys_64738almost 2 years ago
I bought 3 tickets back in Nov 1994 when it started in England. I never won and never bought another ticket.
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osullipalmost 2 years ago
Not worth promoting mathmatical oddities that encourage people to gamble, in my opinion.
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