Poll of the Day > Odds of winning the US Lottery is 1 and 292 MILLION..in Canada it's 1 in 33MIL!

(+) Yeah! (+)

Everyone knows the odds of winning the jackpot is literally zilch..although the odds in Canada are much easier but still not likely to win for most players.

The odds of winning America's most popular lotto is 1 and 292 million. In Canada's most popular lotto game it's 1 and 33 million...still not good odds..

However, in one of Canada's lottery systems, there is a GUARANTEED winner in it's popular 6/49 game where the computer will randomly pick a winner based on ONLY the number of tickets sold that week and they will win 1 MILLION!!...so now your odds are even better in Canada's lottery game...whereas in America you need to match all but 1 number to even get the second prize of a 6 figure and even that's not guaranteed...

But despite all these bad odds, do you still play the lotto?

https://i.imgur.com/isZRMl3.jpg
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Canada's jackpots are lower, though, and their funny money isn't worth as much as American currency. $1m CAD is only $765k USD.

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Your waaaay better off hitting a casino and playing blackjack/roulette etc even in the US (better odds in Europe).

Heck I believe they still have online casinos, so if you really wanna win some cash, even if your chances still suck, do it that way.

Your throwing money away playing the lottery.

If your serious about wanting to make money betting french casino's have roulette with only a 1.35% advantage for the house on bets. You still have maximums to deal with, but you can generally get around them by placing bets on more and more unlikely possibilities as you reach the maximum bet amount (intially odd/even or red/black, then 33% chance to win, then 25% chance to win all the way down to a single number (need to make sure there is not a maximum payout on the table though, and stay within that number).

Using such a method though you could play a table with say a 5$ min bet and $1000 max bet, and eventually win at 35/1 odds, and walk away with 35k off an initial 5$ bet.

Your chances are very small to do that mind you, but still WAY better than winning the lottery.

Sadly only casino's generally follow the american standard which has 2 possibilities that the house auto wins (o and oo), which means about a 5% advantage for the house. Over a long period of time betting the same amount, you will in general lose 5% of whatever you have bet. The reason for the max bets (especially in online casinos where your bets are not monitored directly) is to prevent "doubling" the bet each time until you win (or limiting that strategy at least), since if giving a large enough maximum, eventually you can just double till you win, and then start again.

So with a 5$ min and $1000 max, you can bet 5$, then if you lose 10$, then if you lose $20/40/80/160/320/640 ....so you actually have to lose 8 times in a row to lose money, but if you do, you lose alot.

The odds of that happening (losing 8 times in a row) are about .6% in the US and .5% in the UK (except france which is about .3%)

If you wanna make a quick 20$, your fairly safe, as long as you don't do it too often. 20$ using this method requires you to win 4 times before leaving. Each time has a (lets use the US version) .6% chance for you to fail but your risking $1300 or so each time you play. Still statistically you'll walk away with $20 extra dollars at least a few times before losing it all unless your extremely unlucky. In the end the house still ends up with more money (even in france), so it's still generally not worth it.

Way better odds than the lottery though, and honestly if you could find higher tables or play poker etc for large sums in a back room or something, you could end up with millions way easier that way then winning the lottery.

If you can count cards etc, that can increase your chances slightly as well, and it's hard to tell if someone can/is doing that as long as they don't bet too long at once table/casino (it does take a few bets for your odds to increase much, and some casino's will break out a new deck to avoid that anyway).

If I was actually playing high stakes blackjack/poker I would have a new deck opened and shuffled by a 3rd party who has no stake in the outcome for each hand. A deck of cards (Sealed) is cheap.


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Fun Fact about the Canadian lotto... if you play ANY WCLC game, it doesn't matter which one, the house edge is exactly the same.

If doesn't matter if you play the Pick 3 or the 6/49, for every $1 you spend your expected returns are $0.50

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Zeus posted...

Canada's jackpots are lower, though

Eeyup. It's exceedingly rare to see a jackpot here break $50 million, whereas I feel like that happens pretty often in the US. Of course, less of it gets eaten by taxes than US prizes do, which evens the playing field a bit, but you're generally still going to win quite a bit less if you win the lottery in Canada than in the US.

Of course, the notion of comparing lottery jackpots like that is kind of silly. Provided you manage the money quasi-sensibly, pretty much any multi-million lottery win is going to leave you more or less set for life (and if you don't, the magnitude of the win pretty much just dictates how many new boats you have to sell off when buying too many new boats puts you in crippling debt). Comparisons between them are therefore pretty moot.

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Personally I wish they made the jackpots significantly lower but drastically increased the odds of winning, so more people would win. You don't need 600 million (Even after taxes eating alot of that and only getting 75% if you do lump some).

A better way (in my opinion) would be to make a more fair lottery, where 10% of the money collected goes to whatever, but 90% is returned, and split to a point where people generally get about 5 mill in winnings each.

Lump sum option would be 4mill and then 50% (depending on the state you live in) would leave you with a bit over 2mill. More than enough to totally change a persons life and ensure they could live easily (even now you could still get at least 5% of that in interest per year, so 100k for life).

Instead of having...maaaaaybe, 1 person win 100mill (or having that hold over and build up over time), you could have 20 people win 5 mill. The odds would be better/fairer as well since you only take out about 10% and the rest all gets returned.

THEN it would make sense to play the lottery. You still wouldn't have a great chance of winning, but......it could happen and it would for some people and you would be paying towards making their lives much better. I would feel good about putting money into that system.

I also think lottery winnings should be exempt from taxes tbh, or taxed at a much lower/fixed rate (perhaps just state taxes but no federal).

Basically something like this as the entire setup.

Lottery tickets can be purchased for $1, total possible combinations (Chance of winning) is around 1/100 million.
Total jackpot (total you can win) is 80% of the # of tickets purchased (200 mill tickets purchased = 160mil jackpot)
Jackpot is paid immediately, in full (no reduction for lump sum), split among the winners.
10% of the # of tickets is paid out amoung those who were 1 number away from winning (split between them, immediatly, no taxes)
10% of the total sum goes towards education or whatever (possibly some towards running the lottery etc., maybe 1% towards that and 9% towards other stuff).

Net result would create a way for average people to get rich, even if your chance wasn't great. Say you factor in only adults eligable, and not too old (in care facilities etc), so less than 200 mill total americans. If everyone played, you would create a few millionares a pop, without hurting most people (Everyone tosses in $5 for instance, so 1 billion total purchases).

If you aim for a 5 mill jackpot (create the odds around having that be the average winning), and you have a 800 million jackpot, that means about 40 winners (or new millionares) each time. Tax free, no lump sum reduction. You would also have a bunch of people (400 I think it is), get the secondary prize which would split 80 million (200k each)...also no taxes or lump sum reduction).

I could totally get behind that.

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America? Making a change that helped a greater number of people to become moderately wealthy instead of a small number of people becoming obscenely wealthy? It'd never happen.

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Lotteries are a total waste. It's mildly fun to toss out a few bucks once in a blue moon towards a very low chance of winning big, but it's sad when you buy tickets every day, or even every week.

The only time I play the lottery is in my staff lotto pool. I know I'm likely throwing my money out the window, but $50 per year is nothing compared to how shit I'd feel if my coworkers won and I was stuck not getting a slice of it.

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faramir77 posted...

Lotteries are a total waste

For potential personal gain, yes.

But think about this. What can 1 million people do with 1 dollar each? Virtually nothing.

Now, what can one person with 1 million dollars do?

Economics is like electrical voltage - the power of it is in the differential. Of course, lotto COMPANIES are rather monstrous given that they have absolutely pathetic house edges compared to a casino

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When I think of the lottery, I think of this picture...

https://i.imgur.com/lAWkbu8.png
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LinkPizza posted...

When I think of the lottery, I think of this picture...

https://i.imgur.com/lAWkbu8.png

Is there a swarm chaining mechanic in that game? I think there was a chain mechanic in ONE of the games

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Lokarin posted...

Is there a swarm chaining mechanic in that game? I think there was a chain mechanic in ONE of the games

In some battles, you would fight 5 of the same wild Pokmon. I dont remember much about it, though...
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That's not what the word literally means.
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