Psychic's Regular Numbers

[WesleyTarle]

Why would a fortune teller need regular numbers? I mean, shouldn't they choose numbers at least close to the right ones every time they buy a ticket?

An aside, I heard somewhere about a group buying all the tickets available to a lottery and winning. Does anyone know about this?

Welcome to the forum! I think the reason psychics give as to why they can't predict winning numbers is usually 1) they can't accurately predict sequences of numbers, their 'power' doesn't work 'that way' or 2) It would be immoral and unfair for them to 'abuse' their 'powers' in such a manner.

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by WesleyTarle

An aside, I heard somewhere about a group buying all the tickets available to a lottery and winning. Does anyone know about this?


I wouldn't be surprised if somebody did that, but they would lose money at it...

[WanderingKnight]

I wouldn't be surprised if somebody did that, but they would lose money at it...

Well, not neccesarily. They would lose money at it if they kept doing it, but if they got lucky once and quit they could come out a head,

I dimly remember a group getting the required financial backing to try such a scheme. They didn't buy ALL the tickets, I don;t think, but they bought enough to give them decent odds. In the end, it wasn't the big jackpot that got them the most money(they had to share it) but the thousands uopn thousands of smaller wins.

[WesleyTarle]

I think they made money by waiting until the jackpot was up there. It was the Outback Lottery Club from Australia winning the Virginia state lottery.

I couldn't find the details, I hope someone searches better than me!

[Ladewig]

With para-mutual lotteries, the jackpot rolls over to the next drawing if no one picked the winning numbers. With enough rollovers, the cost of buying every combination is less than the net present value of the jackpot less taxes. With U.S. inter-state lotteries (Powerball, Mega-millions) this positive expected value comes somewhere around 12-16 rollovers.

The mathematical catch with such a scheme is if other players match the winning numbers, then the prize is split. The practical catch with the plan is many lotteries will not just take a check for fifty-some million dollars and allow the presenter to play all fifty-some million combinations; the lotteries require a ticket to be printed for each combination. Therefore, teams or syndicates have to "rent" lottery ticket machines and run them at capacity for a week.

If you bought every possible combination of numbers, you would lose money unless the jackpot was greater than the odds.

Taxes.

And for every dollar you spend on a ticket, only 50 cents goes toward the jackpot.

Powerball odds are about 120 million to one. So if you spent 120 million dollars on tickets, only 60 million of that would go toward the jackpot. That means another 120 million people would have to play to get the jackpot up to what you put in. And then you stand the chance of having to split the pot with another player. And then you have to pay the taxes on what you won.

So any stories about someone buying all the combinations and winning are probably bogus.

[WesleyTarle]

http://www.olconline.com/founder.html

There's a link, for those interested, though a very weak one.

[Ladewig]

Powerball odds are about 120 million to one. So if you spent 120 million dollars on tickets, only 60 million of that would go toward the jackpot. That means another 120 million people would have to play to get the jackpot up to what you put in. And then you stand the chance of having to split the pot with another player. And then you have to pay the taxes on what you won.

So any stories about someone buying all the combinations and winning are probably bogus.

Because the prize money can roll over from week to the ultimate prize can be very large. For instance, in December, a Powerball jackpot of $315 million was won with a single ticket. Of course, as you point out, because the winner collected (after taxes) something in the neighborhood of $114 million, the expected value was still negative.

On the other hand state lotteries often offer better odds than Powerball. In 1991, the California Lotto had odds around 19 million to 1 (they are now much steeper) and the prize grew to $120 million. Depending on the chances of splitting the jackpot, that very well could have been a positive expected value. Unfortunately, the winning numbers in that drawing were rather popular and 10 winning tickets were claimed; but some combinations are played less frequently than others, which led to only one winning ticket for a 1998 Powerball jackpot of $296 million.

The exact value of the winnings awarded depends on the interest rates on the day after the drawing. The lottery turns the 20 to 25-year future income stream into an immediate payout. After U.S. federal taxes are removed the player ends up with something in the range of 35 to 39% of the advertised jackpot.

[Cecil]

And then you have to pay the taxes on what you won. Not in Canada :D. Lottery winnings aren't taxable here. That's why our "Who wants to be a millionare" jackpot was worth more than yours, even though it was in Canadian dollars.

[Cecil]

Originally posted by WesleyTarle
http://www.olconline.com/founder.html

There's a link, for those interested, though a very weak one. Looking around on their site, I found this:

OLC™ uses a computerized system developed exclusively for the club. It analyzes lotteries based on criteria specifically designed to select number combinations to play. This is important. While, mathematically, all number combinations have the same odds of being drawn, historically, if they have been drawn before, they won't. According to Gail Howard (author of books on lotteries), past drawn numbers combinations probably won't appear again for another 1,000 to 1,500 years. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: