Talk:National Lottery
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[edit] Euromillions
Euromillions really needs to be moved to a separate article. It is not a subsidary of the UK's national lottery, and even if it was, most company subsidaries have their own article anyway. It isn't correct to put it in this article. Gerbon689 16:57, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] (now officially called Lotto, like most of its European equivalents)
The line "(now officially called Lotto, like most of its European equivalents)" isn't really correct. The whole thing (as described in this article) is still officially called the national lottery, but the games have been renamed Lotto, Lotto extra etc as described in sub-sections. I am not changing it myself as I fear it may start an edit war, but I am placing it under fac-ac.
[edit] Slight error in reported odds
Hi - I have written most of the Lottery Math article, and, though not really important, there's a slight error in this article's reported odds for 5 balls (and no bonus ball). You say that it's 1 in 55,492 - but I have calculated it as 166474/3 = 55491.3333 recurring (see bonus ball section), which rounds to 1 in 55,491. I am confident I am right about this, because I have calculated all outcomes for this lottery as fractions, and they add up to 1 exactly (as they should). --New Thought 00:31, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
- It's not really an error per say, the figures given are the offical ones. It could be that they use different rounding rules, maybe they are required to round up, as rounding down makes the odds look slightly better that they actually are. Regards, MartinRe 10:23, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
- Aha - that would explain it! The odds of a 4-ball match are also rounded up. Thanks for the explanation.--New Thought 15:53, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Randomness of machines
There seems to be some question over the randomness of the machines and balls: http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/0,12977,1374172,00.html
Sequential numbers also seem to appear frequently. We need more references for this though.
- It's basic statistics.. firstly a combination like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 has just the same probability of coming out as 12, 23, 24, 34, 43, 48. And each draw is not statistically linked, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 being drawn 20 times in a row has exactly the same probability as a different set of numbers appearing for 20 draws. Rob.derosa 08:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] erratum with dream odds number calculations
There are 10 balls per slot, which according to my basic maths and the national lottery website = 1:10 chance of getting one ball right, surely? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.69.88.27 (talk • contribs) 19:51, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
- Nope, but I made the same mistake too! There is indeed 1:10 chance of matching the first ball, but 1:12 are the odds of matching the first ball and only the first ball. It's easier to understand if you work backwards from the end, there are 10,000,000 different possible numbers, so there is only one way of matching all digits, so the odds are 1:10,000,000. For match 6, there are 10 different ways to do so, but one of those already included under match 7, hence the chances are 9/10,000,000 or 1:1,111,112. Similary for match 5, there are 100 ways, but 10 of those are included in match 6 and 7, all the way down to match 1, where there are 1,000,000 ways to match, but 100,000 of those are already included in the higher prizes, so the odds are 900,000/10,000,000 or 1:11.11 (rounded up to 1:12). The odds of 1:10 are those of winning any prize, which is the same answer you'd get if you added up the odds of all the match 1-7 prizes. As a side point, the figures in the articles aren't calculated, but taken directly from the source given, but I hope this clarifies that calculating it ends up with the same figures as a cross check. Regards, MartinRe 22:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
