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OK, self-styled LR statisticians. Here's a question for you: What is the maximum number N so that if N people purchased a ticket in last night's lottery the expected value for purchasing a ticket is still possible. For example, if only one person purchases one ticket, the expected value is, approximately, 1/175,000,000 ($640,000,000) - 174,999,999/175,000,00 ($1) |
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Ugh. 'Positive' not 'possible'. I need to go back to sleep. |
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N is a letter, not a number. |
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OP did you buy a lottery ticket? |
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But is it as lonely as the number one?
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I don't feel like doing the math on this, but I read yesterday that the lottery is basically always a negative EV proposition. This is because of taxes and the likelihood of having to split the jackpot. I think for this particular lottery the EV of a $1 ticket was 63 cents. |
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i might be totally wrong about this, but it seems like the fundamental mistake here is that if only one person bought a ticket for one dollar, the jackpot wouldnt be 640 000 000 dollars, it would be 1 dollar (minus the lottery's profit margin). the lottery will ALWAYS make money, so when the jackpot gets that big, that only means that more than 640 000 000 dollars in tickets have been sold. again i could be totally off base, but that is the only way the lottery could continue to operate, always having a positive expected outcome, meaning that the players each have a negative expected outcome every time. |
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I just did a quick google search. I still don't know, but I kind of doubt what you're saying is true. But, regardless, for the purposes of this question, let's suppose that this isn't the case. |
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I didn't. But I was making a point to somebody else who was going on about how stupid people were for playing. I pointed out that, in this particular case, I thought playing was actually a smart thing to do. At least from the point of view of theoretical probability. But then I realized that whether it was or not really depended on how many people played. This conversation took place pretty late at night, so I didn't feel like crunching the algebra. I have now - I think - and it turns out to be a pretty interesting question, mathematically. I'm more of a geometer than an analyst, and I'm not particularly good at programming. I thought I'd throw the question out here - since LR was still on my browser when I sat down to try to figure it out. I know there's some statisticians on these boards. I do think I know how to do the problem, but getting a precise answer is a little more difficult than simply setting it up.
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