What are the odds of winning the lotto twice?

tommy21

Just heard on newstalk that some lucky dub had picked up a cool half mil after winning 2.5mill a few years ago. I can't help but feel a little bitter...

What are the odds of this?!

orourkeda

remote

8145060 to 1 to do it once.

Jimmy the Wheel

The odds of winning it once, multiplied by two, minus one.


(i think)

Wibbs

Apparently not that remote. I recall reading somewhere before that you've a slightly higher chance of winning the lotto if you've won it before. I know someone who won it twice myself. Not huge money, but a couple of 100 thou(I know that's loads, but not, "Im buying a small island in the far east, building my own rockets and if that cnut Bond shows up, I'm shooting him in the face on sight" money)

J K

8145060 x 8145060

66342002403600 to one.



Actually the question makes no sense, how many draws are entered, how many lines are bought, over what period of time etc

tommy21

J K wrote: »

8145060 x 8145060

66342002403600 to one.



Actually the question makes no sense, how many draws are entered, how many lines are bought, over what period of time etc

True.

starbelgrade

I heard that he won €2.3 million the first time round and €0.5 million this time.

It'd be funny if he spent the entire €2.3 million on lottery tickets to get the second win.

J K

A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon your talking real money.

sandmanporto

tommy21 wrote: »

Just heard on newstalk that some lucky dub had picked up a cool half mil after winning 2.5mill a few years ago. I can't help but feel a little bitter...

What are the odds of this?!

It could be YOU!!!

123balltv

if your not in you cant win

maglite

8,145,060 to one


Each event is independent of the other.

J K

maglite wrote: »

Each event is independent of the other.

They are not necessarily independent. You can look at a sequence of events and calculate the probability of a particular outcome.

If the question were - a person plays for ten weeks. 10 draws. They buy one line in each draw. At the end of the 10 draws what are the odds that the person has won two jackpots.

Jimmy the Wheel

maglite wrote: »

8,145,060 to one


Each event is independent of the other.

But the odds are accumulated, in figuring if the same person can do it twice.

A guy who used to work in my place won it twice. And he was super rich to begin with

Blisterman

J K wrote: »

8145060 x 8145060

66342002403600 to one.



Actually the question makes no sense, how many draws are entered, how many lines are bought, over what period of time etc

Lets see if I can remember my leaving cert probablity..

As every line he buys increases his odds of winning,

It's 66342002403600 divided by the number of entries bought in total.

Say he bought 1,000 lines in his years of playing the lotto, it's 1 in 66,342,002,403.6/1 For one person or just over sixty billion to one.

That's just the odds for an individual. As about a million people play the lotto, the odds of this ever happening reduces to about 60 thousand to one.

Still impressively rare.

fabbydabby

Saying the odds are x to one is kinda misleading since this format does not represent a probability. Odds of two to one equals a probability of 1/3.

Also, the statement that they are independant events isn't strictly true. Asking the odds of winning it twice means they are not. The odds of winning it twice are simply the odds of winning it once, squared.

But if you asked the question, what are the odds of winning the lotto, having won it already, then of course the events are independant and the odds are the same.

But as JK said it's a bollcks question with no clear answer... theres no mention of lotto plus, or matching five and the bonus, or mutiple lines etc

the lotto is a sh!t investment anyway

Crasp

when you come up with an anwser, I want to use that figure as my lotto numbers

double GG

It'll never happen.

alastair

What are the odds of not winning twice?

I've only played the once and I'll be damned if I'll buy another ticket if I'm not going to win again.

xoxyx

The odds of winning the Lotto twice are the same as winning the Lotto once.

The chances of a certain set of numbers coming up is the same every week. The fact of a person having those numbers doesn't come into it!

Same way as the odds of throwing a red number 3 at roulette once, doesn't affect the odds of that same number coming up again on the next throw.

It's a random occurrence every time. Past plays don't come into it!

Fart

Well... I plan on winning the Euromillions this Friday.

The odds are: Either I will or I won't.

u140acro3xs7dm

If you won 2.5 mil would you keep doing the lotto? sounds like a scabby fúck

Aodan83

Well if you can do it once, you can do it again, right?
The odds don't change though, the draws are all mutually exclusive, so one outcome will have no effect on the others.

Fart

Lola Damaged Hay wrote: »

If you won 2.5 mil would you keep doing the lotto? sounds like a scabby fúck

Ooooh, someone has never won the Lotto.

adamski8

xoxyx wrote: »

The odds of winning the Lotto twice are the same as winning the Lotto once.
!

by that logic i have the same chance of winning every single lottery ever as 1 lotto draw

sdanseo

sandmanporto wrote: »

It could be YOU!!!

Just checked, it wasn't. Liar.

WesternNight

xoxyx wrote: »

The odds of winning the Lotto twice are the same as winning the Lotto once.

The chances of a certain set of numbers coming up is the same every week. The fact of a person having those numbers doesn't come into it!

Same way as the odds of throwing a red number 3 at roulette once, doesn't affect the odds of that same number coming up again on the next throw.

It's a random occurrence every time. Past plays don't come into it!

This.

alastair

adamski8 wrote: »

by that logic i have the same chance of winning every single lottery ever as 1 lotto draw

You do.

WesternNight

adamski8 wrote: »

by that logic i have the same chance of winning every single lottery ever as 1 lotto draw

Yep, you do.

The lottery doesn't magically remember who won and who didn't.

Abelloid

xoxyx wrote: »

The odds of winning the Lotto twice are the same as winning the Lotto once.

The chances of a certain set of numbers coming up is the same every week. The fact of a person having those numbers doesn't come into it!

Same way as the odds of throwing a red number 3 at roulette once, doesn't affect the odds of that same number coming up again on the next throw.

It's a random occurrence every time. Past plays don't come into it!

That's what I would have thought too.

sparkthatbled

I remember hearing what might have been one of those 'friend of a friend told me' stories with no substance. It went that a doctor living in Donnybrook who entered the lottery for the hell of it won the jackpot twice (it being the days when the jackpot was rarely above 2mil). Dunno if it's true but it sure angries up the blood when you're paying off a €500 credit card bill in instalments!

thenutflush

^ Seems to be true!

http://www.tribune.ie/article/2003/may/11/lotto-surgeons-winning-streak-continues/

J K

alastair wrote: »

You do.

No you don't.

sparkthatbled

sparkthatbled wrote: »

I remember hearing what might have been one of those 'friend of a friend told me' stories with no substance. It went that a doctor living in Donnybrook who entered the lottery for the hell of it won the jackpot twice (it being the days when the jackpot was rarely above 2mil). Dunno if it's true but it sure angries up the blood when you're paying off a €500 credit card bill in instalments!

That's who I was referring to in my previous post

fergalr

xoxyx wrote: »

The odds of winning the Lotto twice are the same as winning the Lotto once.

You probably know this, but exactly what you wrote, isn't true.

Of course, the odds of winning the lotto the second time, per entry, were the same as the odds of winning it the first time.

But: The odds of winning it twice, before winning it the first time, are very much less than the odds of winning it once.


Its like rolling 6 on a 6-sided fair die (you know, one of the dice you use to play monopoly or whatever).

If you throw one die, your chance of throwing 6 is 1 in 6.
That's a probability of 0.1666...

If you throw two dice, your chance of throwing 6 both times is 1 in 36.
That's a probability of about 0.0277...

0.02 is much less than 0.1666

However!
If you have just thrown a 6, and you try throw another 6, your chance of doing so is 1 in 6 again - again, probability of 0.1666



Now, there are some assumptions here.
If you always buy as many lotto tickets as you can afford to, obviously, having won it once, you are much more likely to win it a second time - because you can buy more tickets!

xoxyx wrote: »

The chances of a certain set of numbers coming up is the same every week. The fact of a person having those numbers doesn't come into it!

Same way as the odds of throwing a red number 3 at roulette once, doesn't affect the odds of that same number coming up again on the next throw.

It's a random occurrence every time. Past plays don't come into it!

fabbydabby

Fergair is correct. Probability of this event happening twice = the probability of it happening once, squared.

To use the die example (1/6)^2 = 1/36

However if you have already won the lotto, the chances of you winning it again are the same as they always would be for anyone.

Captain Darling

orourkeda wrote: »

remote

8145060 to 1 to do it once.

So there is a chance?

Poor Uncle Tom

Twice...Pffft....I've won the Nigerian lottery 6 times this month alone and shares in the Spanish lottery at least a dozen times since Christmas.

Savage Tyrant

The mother of a friend won over 3 million on the lotto about 6 years ago.... She hasn't won it a second time but she does spend 350 euro a WEEK on lotto tickets. Pretty disgusting actually.

u140acro3xs7dm

I think what we should do as they do in other countries is every time there is a roll over have an extra draw. So if it no one wins for 4 weeks there would be 4 draws on that night for 1 or 2 million each or whatever the jackpot is. that way you change 4 peoples lives rather than 1. Saying that i would be so pissed off if i had to share with others.

Iwannahurl

fabbydabby wrote: »

Fergair is correct. Probability of this event happening twice = the probability of it happening once, squared.

To use the die example (1/6)^2 = 1/36

However if you have already won the lotto, the chances of you winning it again are the same as they always would be for anyone.

This kind of thing is a statistical favourite and a nice head-wrecker that gets you thinking about coincidences and surprising events.

As always with calculating probabilities, probably the trickiest part is deciding exactly what question you are posing.

Is the question "what is the probability that a specific person buying a single ticket for two separate draws will win both times"?

Or is it "what is the probability that some person, out of all the people who buy Lotto tickets, will win the lottery twice in a lifetime"?

The specific individual playing twice and winning twice is a very different mathematical beast from the someone somewhere some day eventually winning twice.

If it's the first one, then the chances are indeed astronomically small but not very relevant.

The second is a bit more real, and in fact far more likely than we might think, because large numbers of people buy lots of tickets every week for every draw for years on end. I would suggest that what people are really wondering about is the possibility of anyone ever winning twice.

Check out these articles referring to a story in the New York Times about a woman who won the New Jersey lottery twice in the mid to late 1980s. The NYT said it was a "1 in 17 trillion chance", which was strictly correct but only for a very specific condition. Two statisticians from Purdue University came up with a very different answer. Read on...

The law of truly large numbers says that with a large enough sample many odd coincidences are likely to happen.

For example, you might be in awe of the person who won the lottery twice, thinking that the odds of anyone winning twice are astronomical. The New York Times ran a story about a woman who won the New Jersey lottery twice, calling her chances "1 in 17 trillion." However, statisticians Stephen Samuels and George McCabe of Purdue University calculated the odds of someone winning the lottery twice to be something like 1 in 30 for a four month period and better than even odds over a seven year period. Why? Because players don't buy one ticket for each of two lotteries, they buy multiple tickets every week (Diaconis and Mosteller).

1-in-a-Trillion Coincidence, You Say? Not Really, Experts Find

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CrazyRabbit

If you flip a coin, you've a 50/50 chance of it being 'tails'.
If you flip the coin again, there's still a 50/50 chance of it being 'tails'....again. Luck doesn't play into it, and the odds never change so long as the initial conditions remain.

Doesn't matter how many times you win, the odds are exactly the same each time.

Of course, if you won a few million on the lotto, you could buy more tickets for each subsequent draw, thus increasing your chances of winning.

alastair

fabbydabby wrote: »

Fergair is correct. Probability of this event happening twice = the probability of it happening once, squared.

To use the die example (1/6)^2 = 1/36

However if you have already won the lotto, the chances of you winning it again are the same as they always would be for anyone.

The chance of you winning every time you play is always the same - independently defined by the terms of the draw - it just happens that you're extremely likely to lose each time, and the more you play, the more the probability of you losing asserts itself.

J K

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

If you flip the coin again, there's still a 50/50 chance of it being 'tails'....again.

Before you flip the coin the first time. You want to calculate the probability of both flips being heads. The answer is 25%. So you're wrong it is not 50/50.

J K

alastair wrote: »

The chance of you winning every time you play is always the same - independently defined by the terms of the draw - it just happens that you're extremely likely to lose each time, and the more you play, the more the probability of you losing asserts itself.

Let's say you were going to play the lotto next week - one line, and then one line again the week after.
What are the statistical chances of you winning both jackpots. Not the same as winning either the first alone or the second alone.

upandcumming

8145060 to 1 to do it first.
Same again the second time.

Nothingbetter2d

what are the odd of being as lucky as this woman 4 fecking times the jammy git

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world/texas-woman-wins-lottery-for-the-fourth-time_100391731.html

Iwannahurl

tommy21 wrote: »

Just heard on newstalk that some lucky dub had picked up a cool half mil after winning 2.5mill a few years ago. I can't help but feel a little bitter...

What are the odds of this?!

The OP didn't ask any question about the flipping of coins or the throwing of dice.

IMO he is asking what is the probability (or odds, whatever) of some person winning the lotto twice within a time period of several years.

To estimate the real-world probabilities of such an occurrence you need to factor in real-world conditions, in this case the fact that large numbers of people play the lottery and that there are two draws every week (more if you want to include Lotto Plus).

It all depends how you frame the question. Are you asking "what was the probability that both of those particular tickets would win" or are you asking "what is the probability that some lucky person will win the Lotto twice in the space of a few years"?

When Evelyn Marie Adams won the New Jersey lottery for the second time back in the 1980s, the New York Times called it a 1 in 17 trillion longshot.

They were giving the right answer to the wrong question though. Here's a 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal that explains why "some lucky Dub" winning twice in the space of a few years might not be such an unlikely occurrence after all: Odds Are, Stunning Coincidences Can Be Expected.




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Duggy747

The odds of me winning the lotto = zero.

Everytime I get a lotto ticket I can hear it laughing at me for having such foolish notions.
















Doesn't help that the toaster won't stop bullying me, either.

dolphin city

tommy21 wrote: »

Just heard on newstalk that some lucky dub had picked up a cool half mil after winning 2.5mill a few years ago. I can't help but feel a little bitter...

What are the odds of this?!

same as it is first time round

each draw is different so the odds will be the same for each draw.

Iwannahurl

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

what are the odd of being as lucky as this woman 4 fecking times the jammy git

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world/texas-woman-wins-lottery-for-the-fourth-time_100391731.html

"The store sells around a thousand lottery tickets each day, and will now be eligible for another ten thousand dollar bonus for selling a winning ticket. It is the second such bonus won by the store, for a ticket bought by the same person."

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world/texas-woman-wins-lottery-for-the-fourth-time_100391731.html