DailyDirt: Taxes On The Mathematically Challenged
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Every so often, a lottery jackpot reaches such an insane amount that everyone starts to wonder if it's worthwhile to thrown down a couple bucks on a ticket. If you haven't heard yet, it's that time again, and the Mega Millions multi-state lottery drawing could hand a lucky winner over half a billion dollars. Here are just a few reality checks if you're thinking about playing.- There are some interesting coincidences in the history of lottery drawings. For example, in one Bulgaria lottery, the same numbers were chosen twice in the same week. Lightning actually does strike twice... [url]
- If you want to see some math on expected values of lottery tickets and what the odds are for someone to win a given lottery, check out this advice from a mathematician. "If you play Powerball every day, stop playing Powerball every day." [url]
- It's likely that there will be multiple winners (2.5 according to the math), but even so, the expected value of a Mega Millions ticket is greater than the cost of the ticket ($1.23). Still, the probability of zero winners is about 10%. [url]
- To discover more stuff related to economics, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]
Filed Under: lottery, mega millions, powerball, probability, statistics, winning
