Ever gotten hooked on scratch-off tickets?

[adk]

Each ticket is an independent event, yes.

1:300,000 is an independent event.

Another 1:300,000 is an independent event.

Together they give you a 1:150,000 chance of hitting a prize that has 1:300,000 odds on a single ticket.

Edit: In case I can make this even clearer, two tickets that each give you a 1:300,000 chance give you a 2:300,000 chance when put together.

Well, I suppose if you bought all 300,000 tickets you could guarantee that you'd win your $25,000 jackpot.

What people are trying to explain to you is that you can expect your return on investment, as a percentage of the amount you spend on lottery, to be the same whether you buy 10 tickets or 1,000 tickets.

 

[StephenCampbell]

Well, I suppose if you bought all 300,000 tickets you could guarantee that you'd win your $25,000 jackpot.

What people are trying to explain to you is that you can expect your return on investment, as a percentage of the amount you spend on lottery, to be the same whether you buy 10 tickets or 1,000 tickets.

Well, using the numbers from my example, if I bought 10 tickets I'd have a 1:30,000 chance of winning, and if I bought 1,000 tickets I'd have a 1:300 chance.

That's why I said the more I spend the greater my odds of hitting a big prize. That's a statistical fact. I can't believe I even need to say this...

 

[mobilehaathi]

Well, using the numbers from my example, if I bought 10 tickets I'd have a 1:30,000 chance of winning, and if I bought 1,000 tickets I'd have a 1:300 chance.

That's why I said the more I spend the greater my odds of hitting a big prize. That's a statistical fact. I can't believe I even need to say this...

The expected value of this $5 ticket is approximately $3.42.

Which tickets do you play?

 

[StephenCampbell]

The expected value of this $5 ticket is approximately $3.42.

Which tickets do you play?

I know that the expected ticket value is less than the ticket cost, obviously. I know it would take luck for me to find a big winner soon. I never denied this.

And I can't say which tickets I play because that would reveal what state I live in.

My stash has grown though.. I came up with this concept of a 'round' of scratch, which consists of a $20 ticket, two $10s and four $5s, for a total of $60. My desk drawer now has five rounds in it.

I may wait a few weeks and then buy another round or two, but once I begin scratching the stash, I'm done losing money. Once we take the stash and begin working through it, from that point on the only money I'll allow myself to spend on scratch will be money that I win from those tickets (and money that the next cycle wins, etc) until I ride it out completely. If by the time my budget-from-winnings reaches $0 I haven't hit a big prize, I'll still be done after that.

Edit: By the way, I have dipped into the stash two times now, in the hopes that whatever I scratch will at least pay for itself so that I can replenish it. Yesterday I scratched two $10 tickets which won $10 each, and today I scratched three losing $5 tickets, only to scratch a fourth which won $20. So again everything is replenished at no extra cost.

I won't be touching it again until it's the final run down.

 

[shinji]

I'm a fan of gambling, but it's something I do once or twice a year at a casino. Most people who end up with a problem had a really nice win early on and just try to chase that feeling. Something to think about, OP. Good luck.

 

[Pompiliu]

Grow up, dude! And stop wasting your money on useless stuff! Better donate them to a charity than throw them away!

I was joking, sorry.

Nice trolling, mate!
I bet he bought some more tickets after reading your post.

 

[Phil A.]

Each ticket is an independent event, yes.

1:300,000 is an independent event.

Another 1:300,000 is an independent event.

Together they give you a 1:150,000 chance of hitting a prize that has 1:300,000 odds on a single ticket.

Edit: In case I can make this even clearer, two tickets that each give you a 1:300,000 chance give you a 2:300,000 chance when put together.

Sorry, but you're wrong - by your logic, buying 300,000 tickets would guarantee you a jackpot, but that's clearly not the case as you would still have only bought 1/3 of the tickets and the 3 winning tickets could well be in the 600,000 tickets you haven't bought: Just because there are 3 winning tickets doesn't mean that buying one gives you a 1:300,000 chance because you can't split the tickets into 3 individual pools with 1 winning and 299,999 none winning ones - To guarantee getting a jackpot in a single purchase you would have to buy (every ticket that was left - the number of winning tickets left + 1) tickets (899,998 at the start of the run)


You can't reduce the odds like that when every ticket is an independent event - It's like saying the odds of getting heads from a coin toss is 1:2, so by tossing the coin twice you are guaranteed to win!




You would have to buy tens of thousands of tickets to significantly increase your chances of winning - and your miscalculation is one of the most common incorrect justifications people use when buying multiple tickets to "reduce their odds"

 

[StephenCampbell]

Sorry, but you're wrong - by your logic, buying 300,000 tickets would guarantee you a jackpot, but that's clearly not the case as you would still have only bought 1/3 of the tickets and the 3 winning tickets could well be in the 600,000 tickets you haven't bought: Just because there are 3 winning tickets doesn't mean that buying one gives you a 1:300,000 chance because you can't split the tickets into 3 individual pools with 1 winning and 299,999 none winning ones - To guarantee getting a jackpot in a single purchase you would have to buy (every ticket that was left - the number of winning tickets left + 1) tickets (899,998 at the start of the run)


You can't reduce the odds like that when every ticket is an independent event - It's like saying the odds of getting heads from a coin toss is 1:2, so by tossing the coin twice you are guaranteed to win!




You would have to buy tens of thousands of tickets to significantly increase your chances of winning - and your miscalculation is one of the most common incorrect justifications people use when buying multiple tickets to "reduce their odds"

I can't believe you're still defending your position.

Are there any math or statistics professors in here who can verify the way reality works and put this case to rest?

I'll try one more time....

There are 900,000 tickets printed.

There are 3 top prizes.

If somebody buys 300,000 tickets, they have a 1:1 ODDS of winning a top prize. This is not a guarantee, but it is the average statistical likelihood. If they had bought 150,000 tickets their odds would be roughly 1:2. This does not mean they are guaranteed anything, BUT.....

If one person buys 300,000 tickets, and then in a parallel universe somebody else bought 300,000 tickets for the same game, and then other people did the exact same thing in 1000 different parallel universes, the number of top prizes won between those thousand people would be VERY close to 1000. It might be 980, it might be 1020... some people might have won nothing while another won two, etc. But collectively, 1,000 people buying 300,000 tickets each would win 1,000 top prizes in a game with 900,000 tickets and three top prizes.

 

[mobilehaathi]

I can't believe you're still defending your position.

Are there any math or statistics professors in here who can verify the way reality works and put this case to rest?

I'll try one more time....

There are 900,000 tickets printed.

There are 3 top prizes.

If somebody buys 300,000 tickets, they have a 1:1 ODDS of winning a top prize. This is not a guarantee, but it is the average statistical likelihood. If they had bought 150,000 tickets their odds would be roughly 1:2. This does not mean they are guaranteed anything, BUT.....

If one person buys 300,000 tickets, and then in a parallel universe somebody else bought 300,000 tickets for the same game, and then other people did the exact same thing in 1000 different parallel universes, the number of top prizes won between those thousand people would be VERY close to 1000. It might be 980, it might be 1020... some people might have won nothing while another won two, etc. But collectively, 1,000 people buying 300,000 tickets each would win 1,000 top prizes in a game with 900,000 tickets and three top prizes.

Stephen the problem is that you seem to think this line of argument rationally justifies buying lots of tickets. You could purchase all of the tickets and guarantee winning tickets, but surely you understand why that is a losing strategy.

 

[StephenCampbell]

Stephen the problem is that you seem to think this line of argument rationally justifies buying lots of tickets. You could purchase all of the tickets and guarantee winning tickets, but surely you understand why that is a losing strategy.

I never said it was a justification for it.

All I said is that the more I spend on a given game, the greater my odds of hitting a big prize.

If that is untrue, as some people here have been suggesting, then the sun revolves around the earth too.

 

[yg17]

I never said it was a justification for it.

All I said is that the more I spend on a given game, the greater my odds of hitting a big prize.

If that is untrue, as some people here have been suggesting, then the sun revolves around the earth too.

Well yes, technically that's true. There are $175,223,510 possible PowerBall numbers, so you could spend $350,447,020 and buy a ticket for each possible combination and guarantee winning the jackpot, but it doesn't mean it's a smart idea.

 

[StephenCampbell]

Well yes, technically that's true. There are $175,223,510 possible PowerBall numbers, so you could spend $350,447,020 and buy a ticket for each possible combination and guarantee winning the jackpot, but it doesn't mean it's a smart idea.

You don't have to buy every possible combination in order to increase your odds. Every time you double the amount of tickets you have for a drawing, you double your odds of winning.

I'm still stunned that I just had to debate people about this most basic tenet of statistical/mathematical reality.

 

[mobilehaathi]

I never said it was a justification for it.

All I said is that the more I spend on a given game, the greater my odds of hitting a big prize.

If that is untrue, as some people here have been suggesting, then the sun revolves around the earth too.

When you say stuff like

I really want to quit after this last batch of tickets I just got, for obvious reasons.

Odds are against me statistically, of course. But odds are always that what happens happens. If I hit a $200,000 ticket, that's what happens, and then I don't lose in the long run. That can happen.

I begin to realize that while spending large amounts of money does statistically improve my odds

a lot of luck can get me a winner

it starts to sound like you're grasping for justification.

I hope you realize that buying more tickets will not improve your odds of coming out with a profit.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I can't believe you're still defending your position.

Are there any math or statistics professors in here who can verify the way reality works and put this case to rest?

I'll try one more time....

.........

I never said it was a justification for it.

All I said is that the more I spend on a given game, the greater my odds of hitting a big prize.

If that is untrue, as some people here have been suggesting, then the sun revolves around the earth too.

You don't have to buy every possible combination in order to increase your odds. Every time you double the amount of tickets you have for a drawing, you double your odds of winning.

I'm still stunned that I just had to debate people about this most basic tenet of statistical/mathematical reality.

The title of this thread (a thread which, incidentally, was started by you) is "Ever Gotten Hooked on Scratch-Off Tickets?"

To answer the original question, no, I haven't. When I am at home I buy a ticket, that is, one ticket, in the State Lottery, each Saturday; I rarely win any money, and the State Lottery benefits from any money that is not given out as a prize, as that is disbursed to worthy causes, thus, I have no quarrel with it.

However, while threads often embark on a life of their own, independent of the initial post by the original poster, in your case, I have to ask, firstly, do you recall what you asked, initially, (and have you read the answers given) and, secondly, do you read what you yourself have written by way of justification for your actions?

The act of even starting such a thread, by asking such a question (even if rhetorical) suggests that you realise (even subconsciously) that your conduct may have elements of compulsion about it.

To write in the terms you have written above suggests strong elements of delusion, denial and compulsive obsession in your conduct. Seeking refuge in stratagems defined by maths is not the answer, because the framework by which a mathematical solution might offer an answer is absent when the original philosophical and psychological framework is so.......dubious.

 

[StephenCampbell]

I've quit buying and dug into my stash.

The first two 'rounds' of tickets ($120 worth) won $175.

The remaining three rounds will be scratched over the next few days.