| Some analysis on lotteries using the excel formulas
Odds of winning. Comparison to flipping a coin Payouts. We will develop a spreadsheet that shows how much you can expect to win or lose. Lotteries A number of ping pong balls are put in a glass device that blows air from the bottom, cause the balls to randomly circulate. A button is pressed for say 6 numbers and a random ball with a number is displayed. So assuming there are 50 balls the odds of picking the first number is 1 in 50. There are only 49 balls left so the odds of picking the second are 1 in 49. so for 6 balls 1/50 * 1/49 * 1/48 * 1/47 * 1/46 * 1/45 = 1/11,441,304,000 or 1 in 11.4 billion I've noticed a pattern of consecutive numbers quite often. This is a form of the birthday problem. So let's figure out the odds using Excel. Process |