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Comment on: Paper Clips

From my response to another blog

1 Comment
Friday, December, 29, 2006 3:01 PM BobGrins writes:

A little aside on playing the Lottery

I have heard of several people who only play the Lottery when it "gets big enough." I don't play the lottery at all, but it seems your chances of winning are better when the balance is lower.

Consider this. The lottery is $10 million and 100 people play it. You have a 1 in a 100 chance of winning, or 1.0%. Now, the lottery goes up to $100 million, and now 1,000 people are playing it. That means your chances of winning have now been reduced to 1 in 1,000, or 0.1%! Sure, you have a chance of winning a lot more money, but your actual chance of winning, or winning all of it by yourself, are reduced.

The flip side of this arguement is that you are not competing against the other players, you are trying to guess what lottery numbers will be selected. Since it will always be a random six numbers, your chances of guessing those six numbers are always the same, so play when the pot is largest.

The flip-flip side is, "Don't be an idiot, stop playing the lottery!"
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