# Did you take a basic statistics course? Write LOTTERY MEGA MILLIONS History!

Discussion in 'The Cesspool' started by MattMarr, Mar 26, 2007.

1. ### MattMarrBannedBanned

Messages:
193
Did you take a basic statistics course? Then here is your chance to write History (LOTTERY - MEGA MILLIONS and EUROMILLIONS)

What are the odds of winning the MEGA MILLIONS Jackpot?
Did you take a basic statistics course? Then you know that you only need to multiply a few times to get the answer: 1 in 175,711,536.

What are the odds of a MEGA MILLIONS or EuroMillions Jackpot rollover n times in a row?

What were the odds of the $390 million Jackpot, shared by the "Georgia truck driver" and "somebody else"? Or in other words: what are the odds of an Advertised Annuity Jackpot of$XXX million, which
- required a jackpot rollover n times in a row, and
- had for each of those n draws an effective sales volume of Vn?

All the parameters are known, i.e.
- the odds of winning the MEGA MILLIONS Jackpot: 1 in 176 million;
- the price for each bet;
- the official sales history, draw after draw, until the record Advertised Annuity Jackpot of $390 million.Note that for this calculation you don't even have to know the distribution of the revenue from those bets, in particular which percent goes to the jackpot. So it should be peanuts for you to calculate what are the odds that the Jackpot could reach that sum, i.e. that week after week nobody got the right combination. Besides having to multiply a few times, the only additional thing is to use a statistical distribution function that reflects lottery bets, say the Poisson distribution. It was never as easy to enter History - all you need is to input data into the calculator Matt Marriott claims that this computation alone immediately proves that MEGA MILLIONS is rigged (the same for Euromillions, where the maximum number of weeks of a jackpot rollover, i.e. a draw without a jackpot winner, happened several times in the last two years), i.e. that what he explained in 2004 as first and a couple of years later also as only one, really happens each week: - a combination Cx that nobody did is picked up from the computer database that stores all the bets, - after which a video tape is produced with background music suggesting continuity, - while in fact that video tape is an assemblage of cuts suggesting that the balls for Cx are being drawn. So here is your chance to enter History by being the first to prove Matt Marriott wrong. Prove that our Lotteries are not rigged! Go for it! We at the State Lottery can't give you a jackpot, but you can count on as many X dollars as those 1 in X odds! Be another lucky "Georgia truck driver"! 2. ### GuestGuest Advertisement to hide all adverts. 3. ### PeteIt's not rocket surgeryModerator Messages: 10,166 All draws are open to the public. Why not pop in to the WSB-TV studio at 11pm on a Wednesday or Saturday night and watch for yourself? I suspect that you could also obtain uncut recordings of previous draws if you asked. I can't find sales histories on the MegaMillions site. I'm constructing an approximation from the prizes and jackpot amounts, and will try to give you odds of the jackpot reaching various amounts shortly. What do you think that X might be? 4. ### GuestGuest Advertisement to hide all adverts. 5. ### spidergoatValued Senior Member Messages: 51,799 The total number of Mega Millions combinations is 175,711,536. Since the total population of the United States is 300 million, at least half of everyone here would have to buy a ticket in order for a winner to be likely. I guess some people do buy multiple tickets, but mostly when the jackpot gets higher and more people participate. 6. ### GuestGuest Advertisement to hide all adverts. 7. ### James RJust this guy, you know?Staff Member Messages: 30,510 Let me guess. The [enc]Illuminati[/enc] are rigging the lotteries now. 8. ### §outh§taris feeling causticRegistered Senior Member Messages: 4,832 ROFLMAO. Cesspool. PLEASE? 9. ### PeteIt's not rocket surgeryModerator Messages: 10,166 Where would we be if we Cesspooled all the crazy ideas? Perhaps we'll Cespool it if it degenerates with no productive discussion. 10. ### NickelodeonBannedBanned Messages: 10,581 Funnily enough I've always wondered if lotteries are fixed. 11. ### §outh§taris feeling causticRegistered Senior Member Messages: 4,832 From what I gather, we're suppossed to participate in the 'megamillions lottery' (whatever that is) in order to prove some guy wrong. moreover, the guy has proven (or claims to have proven) that this lottery is 'rigged'. nevermind the media frenzy over any inkling of such a scandal and the deluge of frivolous lawsuits which would most certainly ensue if this was shown to be a possibility. Now what being the next Georgia truck driver has to do with taking a statistics course, I don't know.. but I'm quite sure in any case that if human beings can figure out Fermat's theorem, someone sure as hell would have discovered some determinism in the lottery (if there is such a thing to be discovered). Besides which, why are we being told this? Any sane person would cash in on this discovery and tell the least people possible while doing it. I don't see how telling more people and (alledgedly) increasing the chances that more people could win is somehow an improvement. But then again I'm only studying differential geometry and I haven't ever taken a basic statistics course. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! 12. ### AbsaneRocket SurgeonValued Senior Member Messages: 8,989 WSB has great radio. I live here in Atlanta with WSB. I've never been interested in statistics. I never took a course in it and I have been trying to avoid it. 13. ### PeteIt's not rocket surgeryModerator Messages: 10,166 OK Matt, It looks like about 510 million entries in Mega Millions were played in the 15 weeks leading up to the$390 million jackpot.

So, the question you're asking is - is that reasonable? Is it reasonable that 510 million entries in a row could miss out on a 1 in 176 million chance?

There's about 1 chance in 18 that there will be no winners in 510 million entries.

14. ### AbsaneRocket SurgeonValued Senior Member

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8,989
(175999999/176000000)^510000000*100 = 5.5148416...% chance.

1 in 18.1328870806... chance of this happening.

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4,832

16. ### AbsaneRocket SurgeonValued Senior Member

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8,989
That depends on the meaning of "about!"

17. ### spidergoatValued Senior Member

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51,799
That site is funny. They worked out that if you drive one mile to the store to buy your lottery ticket, you are 6 times more likely to get killed or kill someone in an auto accident than you are to win the jackpot.

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19. ### DefiantRegistered Member

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NOT rigged? That is proving a negative. Why don't you prove that it is rigged first?

20. ### iceauraValued Senior Member

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24,279
The numbers chosen by ticket buyers are not randomly selected- and so the odds of the lottery being won are less than random chance would say.

21. ### BenTheManDr. of Physics, Prof. of LoveValued Senior Member

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8,967
Welcome to the Cesspool.

22. ### Captain KremmenAll aboard, me Hearties!Valued Senior Member

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12,738
A Matt Marr post in the Cess Pool.
Must be a million billion to one.
This forum is rigged.

Last edited: Jan 14, 2008
23. ### Captain KremmenAll aboard, me Hearties!Valued Senior Member

Messages:
12,738
Correct.
One week in the UK, 133 people were Jackpot Winners.
People expecting to be able to tell their boss to stuff his job were very disappointed.

People use the same strategies in picking numbers.
They use birthdates and lucky numbers.
If they are trying to pick randomly, they spread the numbers around the ticket in a manner that looks random to them.
They aren't.

The lottery results are nearly perfectly random.
If they coincide with the numbers people like to pick, there will be a lot of winners.
If not, there will be few winners. Or none.