I recently read an article on a blog where the author answered the question "how do you win the lottery?" with the silly answer "don't play". Citing the fact that you have almost zero chance of winning the jackpot the author claimed that you have almost the same odds of winning the lottery as someone who never bought a ticket. This is one blogger who has no idea how to work with mathematics although, as you will see, he thinks he does!
Of course it is difficult to win the lottery. I will highlight some reasons why you have almost no chance of winning a prize. What is not commonly known is that the terrible odds the lottery offers apply only to ordinary tickets.
Most people have heard that you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning a lottery jackpot. The blogger I mentioned previously also pointed out that, with odds of 1 in 88,000, you have a better chance of dating a supermodel than winning the lottery and that, with odds of 1 in 20,000 you have a better chance of being killed by an asteroid than winning the big prize.
While these statistics are interesting, entertaining and fairly accurate they misrepresent the lottery slightly. The blogger in question was pointing out that the lottery is a game of chance yet continued to use statistics to back up his point.
Using probability and mathematics to show that some strange and unlikely events are more likely to occur than a jackpot lottery win the blogger actually proved that the lottery is not a game of chance but a game of probabilities! So although he claimed that the lottery was a game of chance he proved it was actually a game of probability!
What the blogger fails to realise is that you can use the law of probability to alter your odds in the lottery. In his supermodel example, outlined above, an ordinary guy has 1 in 88K chance of dating a supermodel but do you think these odds would stay the same for that guy if he got a job that put him in close proximity of supermodels every day?
It makes sense right! You have a 1 in 88,000 chance of dating a supermodel when you work in a supermarket but when you work with supermodels and talk to them every day you obviously have a better chance of dating one!
Likewise, buying a lottery ticket in standard 6 from 49 lotteries gives you only 1 in approximately 14,000,000 chance of winning the jackpot. Using some simple mathematical models, however, that are based on the law of probability it is easy to increase your odds of winning by a lot.
So by incorporating a scientific approach to buying tickets you can work with the law of probability to help you win some prizes. Surely this is a much better option that the silly advice not to play offered by the blogger.
I hope you can see that our friendly blogger made some assumptions about the lottery which are not entirely accurate. It is not merely a game of chance and while he went to great lengths to show that it is he used probability and maths to do it - which shows it is also reliant on those things.
Of course it is difficult to win the lottery. I will highlight some reasons why you have almost no chance of winning a prize. What is not commonly known is that the terrible odds the lottery offers apply only to ordinary tickets.
Most people have heard that you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning a lottery jackpot. The blogger I mentioned previously also pointed out that, with odds of 1 in 88,000, you have a better chance of dating a supermodel than winning the lottery and that, with odds of 1 in 20,000 you have a better chance of being killed by an asteroid than winning the big prize.
While these statistics are interesting, entertaining and fairly accurate they misrepresent the lottery slightly. The blogger in question was pointing out that the lottery is a game of chance yet continued to use statistics to back up his point.
Using probability and mathematics to show that some strange and unlikely events are more likely to occur than a jackpot lottery win the blogger actually proved that the lottery is not a game of chance but a game of probabilities! So although he claimed that the lottery was a game of chance he proved it was actually a game of probability!
What the blogger fails to realise is that you can use the law of probability to alter your odds in the lottery. In his supermodel example, outlined above, an ordinary guy has 1 in 88K chance of dating a supermodel but do you think these odds would stay the same for that guy if he got a job that put him in close proximity of supermodels every day?
It makes sense right! You have a 1 in 88,000 chance of dating a supermodel when you work in a supermarket but when you work with supermodels and talk to them every day you obviously have a better chance of dating one!
Likewise, buying a lottery ticket in standard 6 from 49 lotteries gives you only 1 in approximately 14,000,000 chance of winning the jackpot. Using some simple mathematical models, however, that are based on the law of probability it is easy to increase your odds of winning by a lot.
So by incorporating a scientific approach to buying tickets you can work with the law of probability to help you win some prizes. Surely this is a much better option that the silly advice not to play offered by the blogger.
I hope you can see that our friendly blogger made some assumptions about the lottery which are not entirely accurate. It is not merely a game of chance and while he went to great lengths to show that it is he used probability and maths to do it - which shows it is also reliant on those things.
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