Question - For the maths lovers ^^

[lotusch]

Guys,

I am just trying to figure this out.
I am playing the very same 3 numbers in the Euromillions now for about 6 months together with my mum in law...If they come out it is 1500/1 payout and we throw a fiver between us every draw.
So 7500 Euro when when they ever come out.

Now, here is the question.

Are the chances of hitting the 3 numbers equal if I keep playing with the same numbers every week or when I would just do 3 random numbers every time?
People always say, NEVER change your numbers because eventually they come out.
But every draw basically the chances are the same with every 3 numbers I pick or do my chances increase by the week with the 3 numbers I always play?

I think it doesn't matter what numbers you play really as the chances of hitting them are fixed for every draw.
In my local bookmaker it even states the odds of hitting 1,2,3,4 or 5 out of the 5 Euro Millions numbers each draw.

I chose 3,12,37 and man I came close so many times.
3,13,38
2,12,37
3,14,36

Torture!!!

I tend to stick to these numbers anyway.

 

[Jono777]

Sure This reply will be bettered lol but here is my brief take

Picking ANY 3 numbers will yield the same odd as the 3 you stick to.

Those 3 numbers have an equal chance as any others, the statement regarding them coming out as soon as you decide (if you do) to change them is simply a case of "sod's law" or "How bloody typical", nothing more

The "oh so close" is only psychological, say you choose 13 ....12 and 14 keep coming out, they're only sequential when it comes to counting, the balls are not necessarily next to each other in the draw machine, so sadly not close at all really, may as well be No.1 or No.30? Sadly still not the numbers you want but just as near a miss as 12 or 14.

They don't sadly either EVER have to come out, just because say they've not been out for 10 weeks, they still have exactly the same chance as every other week on the next draw as to whether they come out or not.

I recall doing my first ever Lotto Hot Picks for £1, picked 3 numbers and won the very first week (about £300 IIRC, not sure,so long ago before they increased to 59 balls)

"Oh this is good" I thought, only to repeat ever Saturday for 2-3 years afterwards without a single prize or even close!

Hope this helps, even just a little, more importantly, I hope your balls roll out real soon

 

[goatwack]

Astronomical odds? Lottery-style payouts?

Has Jammin' Jars II come out already?

 

[dionysus]

Sure This reply will be bettered lol but here is my brief take

Picking ANY 3 numbers will yield the same odd as the 3 you stick to.

Those 3 numbers have an equal chance as any others, the statement regarding them coming out as soon as you decide (if you do) to change them is simply a case of "sod's law" or "How bloody typical", nothing more

The "oh so close" is only psychological, say you choose 13 ....12 and 14 keep coming out, they're only sequential when it comes to counting, the balls are not necessarily next to each other in the draw machine, so sadly not close at all really, may as well be No.1 or No.30? Sadly still not the numbers you want but just as near a miss as 12 or 14.

They don't sadly either EVER have to come out, just because say they've not been out for 10 weeks, they still have exactly the same chance as every other week on the next draw as to whether they come out or not.

I recall doing my first ever Lotto Hot Picks for £1, picked 3 numbers and won the very first week (about £300 IIRC, not sure,so long ago before they increased to 59 balls)

"Oh this is good" I thought, only to repeat ever Saturday for 2-3 years afterwards without a single prize or even close!

Hope this helps, even just a little, more importantly, I hope your balls roll out real soon

I think you covered it all and said it well

 

[lotusch]

Well I hit 7,8,9 in the regular lotto 5/4/3/2/1 a couple of weeks ago that you can play here but that was "only" 275x stake as it was played at the regular lotto shops..
In the bookies it would have been 625/1

So I am not complaining.

Euro millions is very hard to hit anything in general as it also has 50 numbers I believe.

 

[dunover]

Right you have a 3/50 x 2/49 x 1/48 chance whatever your numbers about 19,600/1 against. (If you're not perming them i.e. any 3 from 4 = 4 chances or 3 from 5 = 10 chances).

As people have said the chances of any 3 are the same in every individual draw.

What does happen though in lottery draws is what some may call the Law Of Large Numbers or what a mathematician called 'Convergence of random variables' - the gambler's fallacy bangs out the tune that 'after 11 heads the coin is still 50-50 to be a head next time' which ignores the statistical unlikelihood of 12 consecutive heads in the same string.

Without getting into n values and complex formulae I once used this to make a (very small) profit on the UK Lotto when it began back in '94. I had noticed that 8,18,28 and 48 (IIRC) had not come out in the few weeks of the Lotto so kept perming them in various combos on tickets. I won a few tenners and made a small profit when they started appearing, you can check this on the original UK Lotto draws at the start.

Going back to Lotusch's 3 numbers, eventually you'd have so many draws over time that if those three DIDN'T come out it would be a statistical anomaly. Unfortunately we won't live that long to get to that point, but the way I see it is that every draw you're one step further along the path to those 3 numbers occurring together, so my personal opinion is to definitely stick with them. And that also removes the aforementioned 'sod's law' pisser that could occur if you changed them.

 

[snorky510238]

Useless piece of information but when the draw was made from 42 numbers on the Irish lottery the bookies actually got their odds wrong. They offered 600-1 for 3 numbers. Pretty tricky if just picking 3 numbers but if you did a perm of any 3 from all 42 numbers the amount of perms (trebles) came to 11,480 but you were guaranteed 20 winning combinations which = 12,000. At £1 that was £520 profit all you had to do was be able to get the bet on without arousing suspicion. Not sure if it was ever exploited to be honest but the offer stood for a long time.

 

[lotusch]

Useless piece of information but when the draw was made from 42 numbers on the Irish lottery the bookies actually got their odds wrong. They offered 600-1 for 3 numbers. Pretty tricky if just picking 3 numbers but if you did a perm of any 3 from all 42 numbers the amount of perms (trebles) came to 11,480 but you were guaranteed 20 winning combinations which = 12,000. At £1 that was £520 profit all you had to do was be able to get the bet on without arousing suspicion. Not sure if it was ever exploited to be honest but the offer stood for a long time.

The local bookmaker in my village (Tullys) still gives 625/1 on the Irish Lotto for 3 numbers in a 6 ball game. 7 ball (including bonus number) pays shy half of that.

 

[snorky510238]

The local bookmaker in my village (Tullys) still gives 625/1 on the Irish Lotto for 3 numbers in a 6 ball game. 7 ball (including bonus number) pays shy half of that.

The problem is now they pick from 47 numbers the odds change dramatically. Now to cover all trebles from 47 you are looking at 16,215 bets and your return per stake is only 12,500. Unfortunately now a guaranteed loss.