It's The Big One!

[jiggery_pokery]

If you can recognise which of the many people who have doubtless said "It's The Big One!" over the years I like to quote, award yourself considerable smugness.

The EuroMillions lottery draw rolled over for an eleventh consecutive week last week, so a special stipulation comes into play. It cannot roll over for a twelfth consecutive week, so all

Comments

[tleberle]

This just seems silly to me, at least from the POV of, well, everyone

[jiggery_pokery]

Oi, oi! You're taking exactly the first approach by (a) considering the jackpot only and (b) not considering the possibility of other people sharing the jackpot with you.

There was another lottery game in the UK, Lotto Extra, which paid out a rolling jackpot for six correct 1-49 numbers only. Jackpots there started at a million and crawled up at a terribly wimpy pace - a couple of hundred thousand here, a couple of hundred thousand there, the only people playing it presumably being the ones who were obsessive about playing their lucky numbers for fear of the instance that the time they didn't play their numbers, the numbers would come up. Predictably, once the jackpot eventually climbed to £5-6 million, it started to increase more quickly, but it never reached very much. The game was closed due to lack of interest, eventually; I wish I had spotted the last week the game was to be played, with all the rollover funds presumably to be distributed somehow or another, which would very likely have been +EV itself.

[hedwig_snowy]

Prayer might help. :-) So, all that and your advice is to definitely buy one this week, but only one. Gotcha!

Although, wouldn't playing the same numbers every week improve your chances over time? No, nothing that has occurred before effects a future gambling event. Or, does it matter?

Besides it's only 1.5 pounds...cough it up. Send me a postcard from da islands mon!

[jaq]

No, it doesn't really make any difference which numbers you play, so you may as well get a 'lucky dip'.

There is a possible effect that I wonder about, which is that maybe other people choose numbers based on dates that are important to them, which will skew the possible prizes somewhat, but I don't know if it really happens enough to make a difference.

[jiggery_pokery]

It's definitely a question worth asking. One approach to picking numbers which are relatively unlikely to be duplicated is discussed there; presumably similar procedures could be drawn up for EuroMillions and the other games as well.

[hedwig_snowy]

Well, considering the factor that some people 'pick' them numbers (they do here, while others can just let the computer pick), the more 'odd' the combinations the more likely you'd be to win it by yourself, even if the odds didn't change to win it at all. Say you picked 1-2-3-4-5. It is both unlikely that a computer would do it or another player would either. Sure, you might never win, but wouldn't you have the same odds as picking some random, spread-out numbers or family members birthdays? :)

[oinomel71]

Given 3) above, can I buy a 1/150 share of your ticket if you get one? :-)

[jiggery_pokery]

Yes, but only on the basis that I am not PayPal-ing you 4p if I win bottom prize!

[hedwig_snowy]

105 million pounds or bust eh? LOL

[anonymous]

Hehe all that calculating confuses me :)

But I made myself a tool to monitor my Euromillions combinations and mail when I win, cause I always forget to check it or renew my ticket in time.

http://www.lottomate.org if anyone is interested

[oldbloke]

If you enter online via http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/ they'll email you if you win, so you never need to worry about it.

[zarchasmpgmr]

Funny, here in California "It's The Big One" has an entirely different meaning.

Although the last "Big One" was in 1906...