Talk:National Lottery (United Kingdom)

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Contents

[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) kujahvskd

[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, 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 a s 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)
People underestimate the likelihood of sequences in a random series of numbers. See http://www.rexswain.com/benford.html for the story of the professor who asks his class to record the results of 200 coin-tosses, or if they prefer, to simply make up the results. He can normally pick out the fake results: they tend to avoid having long runs of the same outcome; but the genuine results of 200 tosses will almost always have a run of 6 consecutive heads or 6 consecutive tails. I'm sure the same applies in lottery results... the chances of there being a short "run" is probably larger than most people imagine. TomH 20:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
There is some interesting info at http://www.lottery.co.uk/stats/. Some balls are clearly more popular than others, for example compare 41 and 38. According to official stats on the site above, 41 has been picked 113 times and 38 171 times (as of 12/02/07). That means that 38 is more than 1.5 times as likely to be picked as 41. My understanding of statistics is that, with a sample this large if the odds on each ball were equal then there should not be variations this large.
"That means that 38 is more than 1.5 times as likely to be picked as 41." No it doesn't! It just means that at some point in the past, 38 had been picked around 1.5 as many times as 41. This does not mean that it is any more (or any less) likely to be drawn in future. That is the whole point of a random draw.
Maybe you are assuming that such a large departure from the norm is proof positive that the draw is not truly random. But there will always be some difference between the most-frequently and least-frequently drawn numbers. It would be interesting if a proper statistician could tell us what the expected standard deviation is, and what is the probability of such a large departure from the mean. I suspect that while it is unusual, the odds against it are not astronomical.
I also note that the BBC page says "but the 100 or so draws since have seen it [38] fall back into the statistically normal pack" TomH 20:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
A key thing to remember is that you didn't pick two balls at random to compare, you picked the two balls with the least and most occurrences. A factor of 1.5 seems quite small to me, under those conditions. Unfortunately, I can't think of how to calculate the expected difference - standard deviation isn't it, that would give you the expected deviation of two randomly selected balls, not the expected deviation of the min and max. --Tango 20:19, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Another interesting point to note is that if you look at the official stats page, it is clear that higher numbers are more common than lower numbers. Mojo-chan 11:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Considering that many people use the birth day or month of their children, so there are less winnders when higher numbers come out, this is highly suspicious

[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)

[edit] Prize Fund Allocation Does Not Add Up To 100%

Perhaps I'm being stupid and missing something, but shouldn't the way that the Lotto prize fund is distributed, after the £10 prizes are removed, add up to 100%, not 80%? -- Avapoet 15:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

It's also very ambiguous; it says that players win a percentage of the remaining fund, but remaining after what? Is the jackpot taken out first? or are the £10 winners taken first? If the £10 winners are taken first then why do 4 numbers get a higher percentage than 5 numbers? If the jackpot is taken first then what if the £10 wins amount to less than or greater what's left in the fund? -- Mike —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rudeboymick (talk • contribs) 20:21, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Odds

The odds for the Lotto game are given in the form 56:1 (1/56). But the numbers are not correct. Consider the case of "evens" - odds of 1:1 - this means that an event is believed to have en equal chance of happening or not happening - in other words the probability of it occurring is 1/2. For a probability of 1/n, the odds are (n-1):1. So the correct odds for this event (the balls matching) are actually 55:1 (1/56). All the odds for the Lotto game are wrong for the same reason (assuming that the probabilities given are correct).

It is not clear whether the odds given for the other games are similarly incorrect (do the numbers actually represent probabilities rather than odds?). I could probably work it out given time... but not right now :)


Also: in the other games, the odds are given in reverse, e.g. 1:100. By convention this means odds of 1-100 on (i.e. a probability of 99/100). TomH 20:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] prize

why is the prize larger for numbers than 5 and 5+bonus bal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.55.68 (talk) 21:18, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More about rollovers and expected values please

I am willing to gamble if and only if the expected value is greater than the ticket price. But so far I have not been able to get any clear idea of when or if this occurs. Someone on the Reference Desk made the point that on average the expected value must be 50% (or is it 45%?). Could there be more about the extected value, the effects of rollovers, and actual rollovers and expected values in past lotteries please? And personally I find that p is clearer than bookmaker's odds for desribing probabilities. Thanks 80.0.121.236 (talk) 12:37, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'Good Causes'

There are widespread feelings in the UK that a lot of the causes funded are not beneficial to the UK on a wide level. Ethnic/religious minorities (including Muslims, who officially hate gambling) and homo/trans-sexuals seem to get a disproportionate amount of help. Considering how hard it is to distinguish a terrorist movement from a genuine charity, I wonder how many atrocities have been funded (indirectly or directly) by this money. Other charities who are supported have to keep records of their users, no doubt to ensure an 'acceptable' mix of users.--MartinUK (talk) 09:45, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Widespread amongst who? I've never even heard such things suggested before, and most of the lottery funding i've heard of has gone to museums and things 82.153.230.138 (talk) 15:59, 12 April 2008 (UTC)