New ideas about fundraising (for the future)

[Peter O'Donnell]

DAC, the same mathematics apply if large numbers of people in a consortium play the same "game" making sure that they have chosen different numbers.

Taking your example above (which is true for one person) and accepting that fourth prize, four numbers, is a suitable target outcome, the chance that you will win at random is one in 1031.4 or, more or less, .0001 ... this means the chance you will not win is .9999 and each time you play those are your odds.

Now if I play all year, the chances that I will not win once are (.9999 x .9999 x .9999 etc ) and this probably brings it down a bit, let's say for the sake of argument to .99 ... in other words, I have a one in a hundred chance of winning this prize once a year.

But so do you and so does Red Dog etc etc. So it is like the birthday example, only with different odds so it depends on whether you're saying, how many times until somebody hits a fourth, or how many will win a fourth during the year?

If you think about it, you'll see what I mean.

Of course, it is unlikely that anyone will hit the top prize without quite a large group participating, but my guess (a very difficult computation is required) is that if 3,000 people bought the same numbers every time, it would take them five years before somebody won the grand prize. For perhaps second prize money of about $100,000 it would likely take the same group less than a year.

That's what Red Dog had in mind in general terms, I think.

The sports lottery works on somewhat the same principle. With a group of people, and assuming you don't care if you lose small amounts but you want somebody in the group to win one large amount, you are far better off to bet the longshots all the time, because they will pay off a few times and hit larger multiples than the more certain favourites with their low odds.

[Peter O'Donnell]

I will add a much easier example that is very easy to visualize.

You are told you can win a million bucks by crossing an interstate highway at night, blindfolded, following a rope.

Traffic is very light and your chance of crossing safely is 99.99% ... so how many times would you feel safe doing it? And how many times would you suggest that all the people in your college physics class might do it at ten-metre intervals, all at the same time?

[DA_Champion]

I know people made money in the 1990s by doing the sports betting lotteries. You don't need luck, you just need better hockey brains than the government employees. Apparently back in the 1990s they didn't take home ice advantage into account. They're probably including it by now. Make a better hockey model and play games like mis-o-jeu, that is the way to go imo. That would actually be a fun community activity as I'm sure most of us have an opinion.

I will add a much easier example that is very easy to visualize.

You are told you can win a million bucks by crossing an interstate highway at night, blindfolded, following a rope.

Traffic is very light and your chance of crossing safely is 99.99% ... so how many times would you feel safe doing it? And how many times would you suggest that all the people in your college physics class might do it at ten-metre intervals, all at the same time?

I wouldn't even do it once :-)

As for your hypothetical example, it's fit by a geometric distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_distribution

You expect your first death at the 10,000th trial, since the mean is 1/p.

Again, with the birthdays, your odds improve because there are more and more correct answers. No matter how many people you have playing the 6/49 there is only one correct answer per week, for the 6/6.

But anyhow,

To individuals, the value of money is not "linear". If you lose $1 a week it can "feel" like $0, whereas winning the jackpot might "feel" more like infinity. Same reason people buy insurance and extended warranties even though they know they'll probably lose.

[Peter O'Donnell]

DAC, I answered before seeing your added comments, in general I agree with you but there are mathematics of scale that apply to these secondary jackpots, on the other hand, it is Red Dog proposing this scheme, I was more into the idea of having various people spend small amounts on sports lottery outcomes where somebody was sure to win, because we are not going to get dozens of people sending $2 by paypal all over the country. So it's easier to get one person to send the larger amount and everyone else facilitates that by spending a small amount.

It probably isn't going to happen, so let's move on.

The 6/49 idea would require too many people, I feel, to give a reasonable chance of a significant jackpot.

What makes me laugh about 6/49 is when the prize goes up and everyone lines up to buy a ticket, do they not think that the small jackpots of $4 million are worth the effort? Who among us would be wasting their time on a measly $4 million and would only be interested in $20 million?

And as you say, the more who enter, the chances of your winning that one large jackpot without sharing it are diminished. And from what I understand the other prize amounts do not change as much, if at all, when the main prize goes up.