It could be you

joe199

What's your opinion on the lotto? do you play it?

Deebles McBeebles

Its a pipe dream for those of us with not much else to be hopeful about.

Happy Wednesday!

BeerWolf

I know of people that play it every week...

Me, personally, only do it when it's above €100m once every 2-3 weeks... buying 5 lines with the plus.

Ush1

Awfully working class.

I know one guy who was deciding whether he should opt for a procedure for his child were the child would have to be put "asleep" under general anaesthetic. He was told that the risks of complications from that drug were something of the order of 1 in a million. He decided "Ah sure that'll almost certainly not happen then!" and went ahead with it.

The same guy does the lotto were the odds of winning are _far_ smaller. Somewhere like 1 in 11 million I think?

I have some sympathy for the old cliche of "The Lottery is a tax on people who can not do basic maths" therefore, and do not play it myself.

valoren

You do it when it's a ridiculous jackpot over 100 million+

You know in all probability that you're not going to win but the price of the ticket allows you to day dream about what you'd do if you did actually happen to win such a ridiculous amount of cash.

Ficheall

Deleted User wrote: »

I know one guy who was deciding whether he should opt for a procedure for his child were the child would have to be put "asleep" under general anaesthetic. He was told that the risks of complications from that drug were something of the order of 1 in a million. He decided "Ah sure that'll almost certainly not happen then!" and went ahead with it.

The same guy does the lotto were the odds of winning are _far_ smaller. Somewhere like 1 in 11 million I think?

I have some sympathy for the old cliche of "The Lottery is a tax on people who can not do basic maths" therefore, and do not play it myself.

Yeah, your winning chances are 999999/1000000 versus 1/11000000. "Playing" the first doesn't make playing the second illogical on its own.


The lottery is a tax on stupid people in about the same way as a pint on a Monday evening is. It can put you in a slightly better mood (if it's not too regular a thing and the effects have worn off) for a similar price. A few quid for a little ridiculously optimistic daydreaming. (I picked Monday because the effect of a lotto ticket will last longer if you have it purchased for more of the week.)

Ficheall

Ficheall wrote: »

"Playing" the first doesn't make playing the second illogical on its own.

Nor did I say it did. My point was less about the relative chances of a "win" so much as more about how the speaker believed a 1 in million event was not prettz much absolutely not going to happen but a 1 in 11 million one may.

branie2

I do it

TheValeyard

Muckka

Murray TheDemonic TalkingSkull wrote: »

What a misogynist, taking advantage of a woman.
Money doesn't buy love.

How dare he.

Apiarist

joe199 wrote: »

What's your opinion on the lotto? do you play it?

I agree with other posters that it gives a hope to better one's circumstances and thus it can be considered a good thing. I do not play it though.

El_Bee

I buy a 2.50 quick pick for the tues and fri euromillions, then I like to browse Daft.ie and look at the nice houses I could buy if I won. Gotta do what you can to keep yourself off the ledge.

topper75

"It could be you" would be a great closing line to news bulletins about the latest murder.

It applies there just the same. Even moreso, statistically speaking.

Father Hernandez

Don't do it myself but this ad is brilliant

Esel

"A tax on stupidity".

SeaFields

I do the work syndicate. That's it. I think it costs us 30 a year.

GinAndBitter

Started back playing it recently, 4 numbers last week got me 23 euro i also won a daily millions ticket.

Throwing money away, but I like to dream.

Guy:Incognito

BeerWolf wrote: »

I know of people that play it every week...

Me, personally, only do it when it's above €100m once every 2-3 weeks... buying 5 lines with the plus.

15m not worth you while winning, no?

Richard Hillman

The Irish lotto is gick. I think it's around €5 for a ticket.

The Euromillions with the plus is €3.50 and a much bigger end prize.

I go through spells of buying Euromillions tickets. If money is tight I wouldn't bother. It's always good to dream.

NickNickleby

Once the Irish lotto goes over 4m I buy 2 lines with plus.

If Euromillions hits 100m, I buy a single line no plus.

Tax on my stupidity. There, I said it. Just don't agree. I like Jimmy Carr's take on it. Chances of winning are 50/50. I'll either win or I won't.


I used to run a syndicate in work. When the Euromillions was above 50m, we'd pay 2e each. I used to send round an email something like this:

"Folks, we are now the proud owners of a Euromillions ticket with 22 lines. With odds being 76million to 1, we now have much better odds of 3.5million to 1. Start planning. On the other hand, you could say there are 75,999,978 other combinations any of which might come up. Should I tear up the ticket???"

No one ever suggested that. Of course I have to admit, we never won. (or perhaps I'm just saying nuthin':D).

Anyway OP, thanks for the reminder, off to get mine now!!

Guy:Incognito

NickNickleby wrote: »

"Folks, we are now the proud owners of a Euromillions ticket with 22 lines. With odds being 76million to 1, we now have much better odds of 3.5million to 1. !!

You didn't bring the odds down to 3.5 million to 1.

bnt

I took part in an office pool just to be sociable. We didn't get out as much as we put in, of course - not even close.
I'm cursed with a copy of Microsoft Excel and knowledge of how to calculate the odds e.g. for the EuroMillions jackpot it's =COMBIN(50,5)*COMBIN(12,2) = 139,838,160 to 1. :eek:

Oink

I played once, and for some reason I felt deeply offended when I didn't win.


Some part of me was thinking: "But... I paid my €10, where are my €10m? What is this? A racket?"


Then I realized I was an idiot, and I didn't play again.

NickNickleby

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

You didn't bring the odds down to 3.5 million to 1.

That must be correct, because we didn't win.

the gist of my email was that the odds were slightly stacked against us. thankfully there were no statisticians in the group.

just for my own edification, what did our odds become when we bought 22 out of 76,000,000 combinations?

NickNickleby

bnt wrote: »

I took part in an office pool just to be sociable. We didn't get out as much as we put in, of course - not even close.
I'm cursed with a copy of Microsoft Excel and knowledge of how to calculate the odds e.g. for the EuroMillions jackpot it's =COMBIN(50,5)*COMBIN(12,2) = 139,838,160 to 1. :eek:

139million to 1 , wow! I'm sure it was 76million when we were doing it - but that's about 12 years ago.

I'd better by a few extra lines so!! :pac::pac:

El_Bee

A theory I was presented with before was that there is no winner, it's just a gigantic scam, and the "winners" who go public now and then are just actors who are brought out sporadically to encourage more people to play.

bnt

NickNickleby wrote: »

139million to 1 , wow! I'm sure it was 76million when we were doing it - but that's about 12 years ago.

I'd better by a few extra lines so!! :pac::pac:

The dirty secret behind lotteries these days: the "lucky stars" or "powerballs" are a way for the organisers to tweak the odds. The EuroMillions "lucky stars" used to go up to 11, not 12 - which means the odds used to be 116,531,800 to 1.

NickNickleby

I just did a lookup on google and the euromillions site says that if you buy 22 lines, your odds go from 138 million to 1, to 6.3million to 1 ( so they simply divided the odds by 22) which is what I did in my syndicate (albeit with a small amount of leeway in my final number - what's a few hundred thousand among friends!)

So, I was confused by guy incognito's post. I have to put my hand up to say that I'm no mathematician, and I'm easily confused! Great lottery fodder!

Laois_Man

Deleted User wrote: »

Somewhere like 1 in 11 million I think?.

To be precise, in the Irish lotto the number of possible combinations are 10,737,573

In the Euro Millions, it's 139,838,160


Shur why wouldn't you play!

Zorya

Very very rarely play it. Mainly because of two things.
1) The first day the Irish lotto started I was in a shop in Ranelagh and the lad in front of me was in a wheelchair and he spent a big whack of his disability allowance on scratch cards and feverishly scratched away at them there by the till, winning nothing, and somehow the whole scenario made me feel profoundly sad.
2) This should have made me feel even sadder but I actually laughed. I dowsed the numbers for the crack, got 6, wrote them down but didn't play them and the numbers came up. No one won that week. Tha kind of chance doesn't swing round twice and check if you are in the mood for a different life. Fcuk it, I don't mind being poor.

frozenfrozen

I do the euromillions when its over 100 million

Grayson

I was in the US, in california, when the lottery there hit a Billion. I played it. It was won in a different state. I don't think anyone has claimed the prize.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/11/14/winner-1-5-b-mega-millions-has-not-claimed-prize/1997462002/

Sleepy

I buy a ticket for one draw or the other most weeks. It gives me the "right" to dream about escaping the mundanity of my life.

I see it as buying hope.

NIMAN

frozenfrozen wrote: »

I do the euromillions when its over 100 million

€90mill not enough for you, ya greedy git:P