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Lottery: Rules of The Lottery Game
Lottery: Rules of The Lottery Game
I choose the lotto as a game analyst to show the nil chances of winning. I am
going to show the probabilities of winning this game. First we must discuss the rules.
5 ₱150,000.00
4 ₱2,000.00
3 ₱150.00
In a lottery ticket, permutation should be used if the numbers in your ticket have
to match the order of the draw for the winning string of numbers. In the Grandlotto 6/55,
order is not important because so long as you have the winning set of numbers, you can
win the prize.
The next formulas only apply for numbers without repetition. This means that if
the number x is drawn, it cannot be drawn again. If the number drawn from the set is
returned before the next draw, then that has repetition.
Note that based on the formulas given, C(n,k) is always less than or equal to P(n,k).
You will see later on why it is important to make this distinction for calculating lottery
odds or probability.
So what if we're talking about a different lottery game where order does matter.
We will now use the permutation formula to get the following:
Compare these two results and you will see that the odds for getting the winning
combination where order matters has 3 additional zero's! It's going from about 28
million:1 odds to 20 billion:1 odds! The probability of winning for this case is 1 divided by
the odds which equals to 0.0000000000479 or 0.00000000479%.
As you can see, because the permutation is always greater than or equal to the
combination, the probability of winning a game where order matters is always less than
or equal to the probability of winning a game where order does not matter. Because the
risk is greater for games where order is required, this implies that the reward must also
be higher.
Because you can also win prizes if you have less than 6 matching numbers, this
section will show you how to calculate the probability if there are x matches to the
winning set of numbers.
First, we need to find the number of way to choose x winning numbers from the
set and multiply it by the number of ways to choose the losing numbers for the
remaining 6-x numbers. Consider the number of ways to choose x winning numbers.
Because there are only 6 possible winning numbers, in essence, we are only choosing x
from a pool of 6. And so, because order does not matter, we get C(6, x).
Next, we consider the number of ways to choose the remaining 6-x balls from the
pool of losing numbers. Because 6 are winning numbers, we have 55 - 6 = 49 balls to
choose the losing numbers from. So, the number of possibilities for choosing a losing
ball can be obtained from C(49, 6 - x). Again, order does not matter here.
So, in order to calculate the probability of winning with x matching numbers out of
a possible 6, we need to divide the outcome from the previous two paragraphs by the
total number of possibilities to win with all 6 matching numbers. We get:
, where n = total number of balls in the set, k = total number of balls in the winning
combination for the jackpot prize, and x = total numbers of balls matching the winning
set of numbers.
If we use this formula to calculate the probability (and the odds) of winning the
Grandlotto 6/55 with only x matching numbers, we get the following:
x
Probabilit
matche Calculation Odds (1/Probability)
y
s
C(49,5)/C(55,6)