c4countdown

I'm not easily shocked, but this shocked me to the core.
Camelot paid out 572 quid for 5 correct numbers on Feb. 26th's Lotto draw.
Which works out at odds of 285/1 for a 2 quid stake,so what? you might say.
Well,do you know what the real odds of getting 5 correct numbers are?
1,000/1 wrong!
10,000/1 wrong!
30,000/1 wrong!
50,000/1 wrong!
The real odds are a truly astonishing 55,000/1! (a little bigger than 285/1!)
I think I've bought my last ticket!

That is shit.

It's the lottery. What did you expect?

5 numbers is not the only way to win though.

Anyway, it's like me going to the bookie's and putting a bet on Damon Hill making a comeback this year and winning the F1 world championship at 2/1. And then complaining about the odds after I win. Surely I should have got 1,000,000 to 1 at least! Well, whose fault is that?

If you're shocked by the odds in a lottery then truly you are easily shocked. Or completely lacking in understanding of probability and/or lotteries.

That is an appalling payout tbf. Were there an unusually high number of winners or something, and if so was there an obvious reason for this?

Certainly seems an unusually low payout for 5 numbers.

4 numbers regularly pays out only about £60, on odds of over 1000/1.

No wonder the lottery has been described as a tax on stupidity.

It's a rip-off. This is not news, this is not shocking. Did you not get round to looking at the payouts from the first twenty years of its existence?

Ian Volante wrote:It's a rip-off. This is not news, this is not shocking. Did you not get round to looking at the payouts from the first twenty years of its existence?

For most of those twenty years it would have been £1 a pop, not £2, and even then I think five numbers was generally £1k-£2k, I doubt very much it was ever anywhere near as low £300, let alone less. So it's quite a big difference tbf and perfectly cromulent to highlight.

Jon Corby wrote:

Ian Volante wrote:It's a rip-off. This is not news, this is not shocking. Did you not get round to looking at the payouts from the first twenty years of its existence?

For most of those twenty years it would have been £1 a pop, not £2, and even then I think five numbers was generally £1k-£2k, I doubt very much it was ever anywhere near as low £300, let alone less. So it's quite a big difference tbf and perfectly cromulent to highlight.

Still a huge rip-off either way, just more so now. The new odds have been pretty well publicised too since the price increase, and when proposed a year ago or so. Not news!

https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/play ... Sequence=0

It depends. If the sole way to win the lottery was to get at least five numbers then 196 people would have shared £7.9m and got over £40,000 each. I believe half the money goes to good causes, so if the odds are 55,000 to 1 this is a poor week, but not ridiculously so. The numbers look as if they might be 'popular' ones. I don't know how the prize fund is allocated, but it seems pretty obvious that there are pretty large steps in what you get for each extra ball, with a heavy emphasis on getting all six, and that the huge numbers getting £25 for three takes a massive chunk of the prize fund.

It's not like some evil overlords are profiteering from people's stupidity, is it? All the proceeds go to good causes.

Jon Corby wrote:That is an appalling payout tbf. Were there an unusually high number of winners or something, and if so was there an obvious reason for this?

From here (or pen and paper), the probabilities of matching the required numbers are roughly:
3 1/57
4 1/1000
5 1/55,000
5+B 1/2,300,000
6 1/14,000,000

Using David's link above we can get rough expected returns per ticket broken down by numbers matched:

3 0.439
4 0.059
5 0.010
5+B 0.014
6 0.114

So significantly more of the payouts are apportioned towards the extremes of matching 3 and matching 6. I'd guess because funding the jackpot is what draws people to the lottery, and also rewarding well those that win most often (3 numbers) encourages people to continue playing. Beyond these two criteria, people will be very poor at intuitively judging just how more unlikely it is to match 4 or 5 numbers than 3, or that 5 numbers and the bonus is only 6 times more likely than winning the jackpot yet receives a prize 50 times smaller.

Jon O'Neill wrote:It's not like some evil overlords are profiteering from people's stupidity, is it? All the proceeds go to good causes.

20% I thought.

Steven M. McCann wrote:I'm not easily shocked, but this shocked me to the core.
Camelot paid out 572 quid for 5 correct numbers on Feb. 26th's Lotto draw.
Which works out at odds of 285/1 for a 2 quid stake,so what? you might say.
Well,do you know what the real odds of getting 5 correct numbers are?
1,000/1 wrong!
10,000/1 wrong!
30,000/1 wrong!
50,000/1 wrong!
The real odds are a truly astonishing 55,000/1! (a little bigger than 285/1!)
I think I've bought my last ticket!

It was actually £634 and 399 people matched 5 numbers, so a total of £252,966 was paid from this prize category, or about 1.5% of the total amount paid out in prizes, according to this. I don't really know how the fund is carved up but I suppose that percentage must go up and down depending on how many people win the guaranteed prizes, the £25 for three numbers must take a massive chunk some weeks.

I'll have the £572 if you don't want it :p

Apparently there's 10,000 people who do the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6, every draw,going by Conor's figures, they'll struggle to get their 2 quid back if they manage to get five correct!

The classic case was a week back in the 90s where there was a large rollover, but all the numbers came in pretty low, netting the hundreds (about 300 IIRR) of jackpot winners something of the order of a few thousand pounds each. Somewhat disappointing I'd say.

http://lottery.merseyworld.com/archive/Lott009.html

133 winners shared £16.3m, receiving £122,510 each. This was one of the very early draws, when the lottery was still big news. I remember thinking at the time that there must have been 133 people who thought they were multi-millionaires for a few hours. I still think it was remarkable, because to my eyes the numbers are nothing special. 7 17 23 32 38 42. Why would so many people pick those exact six numbers?

It was all about the 7s

And the meaning of life.

David Williams wrote:http://lottery.merseyworld.com/archive/Lott009.html

133 winners shared £16.3m, receiving £122,510 each. This was one of the very early draws, when the lottery was still big news. I remember thinking at the time that there must have been 133 people who thought they were multi-millionaires for a few hours. I still think it was remarkable, because to my eyes the numbers are nothing special. 7 17 23 32 38 42. Why would so many people pick those exact six numbers?

Ah yes - not quite as disappointing as I'd remembered, but still, not quite as life-changing as they may have expected!

Jim B., It was actually the Feb 26th draw that I was referring to, the numbers were
3,10,11,24,25,35.
The Jackpot wasn't won which makes the small amount of 572 quid won by the 192 players who got five correct, even more puzzling.
Bookmakers Daily 49's numbers bet offers odds of anything up to 150,000/1 for a player lucky enough to get 5 numbers correct out of 5 in their 49 ball 6 number draws, or if you prefer to perm any 5 numbers from 6, it still works out at odds of 25,000/1.

What on earth is going on? only 374 quid for five correct tonight and a poxy 11,390 for five correct+bonus!
It seems like they have doubled the stakes and quartered the prizes!

http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/playe ... lation.ftl

If you'd just read this and think about it you wouldn't be so shocked.

Yes, as less than half the money taken is paid to prizewinners, you should only expect to win half as much as you paid in

I have just had a nasty surprise, care of Camelot & their poxy Thunderball game, last night I managed to Match 3 & the Thunderball (I always do 8's & 5 for the Thunderball), for some reason, I was under the impression I had won 100 quid, turns out, it was only 20.
Never again, I have learned my lesson!

Steven M. McCann wrote:I have just had a nasty surprise, care of Camelot & their poxy Thunderball game, last night I managed to Match 3 & the Thunderball (I always do 8's & 5 for the Thunderball), for some reason, I was under the impression I had won 100 quid, turns out, it was only 20.
Never again, I have learned my lesson!

Unlike last time!

Ian, it was the main Lottery I stopped doing, ironically enough I started doing the Thunderball because I thought it was better value!

Steven, I get the impression that you are easily shocked.

In hindsight, maybe "disgusted" might have been a better word than "shocked"!

Saturday May10th, since it went to £2, these have got to be the worst payouts so far, only £208 for 5 numbers and just £25 for 4 numbers (the same as 3 numbers!).

The lottery is awful. If you play it thinking you're going to win the jackpot at some point then dream on. You'd be better off going to the bookies and spending that money on a sport you know abit about

Saturday June 21st. Lotto 3, 7, 13, 17, 27, 40. Bonus 19
The "prizes", including only £164 for 5 Balls & £28 for 4 Balls are a little disappointing to say the least!
That's what happens when you pick 7's & 3's in your selections!

There's going to be a lot of pissed off "winners" tonight! (Aug 13th)
All sorts of records have been smashed £15 for four balls! £105 for five balls! £8,211 for five balls plus the bonus!
The numbers were 5,9,11,20,23,30, Bonus 45.

Steven M. McCann wrote:There's going to be a lot of pissed off "winners" tonight! (Aug 13th)
All sorts of records have been smashed £15 for four balls! £105 for five balls! £8,211 for five balls plus the bonus!
The numbers were 5,9,11,20,23,30, Bonus 45.

Fuck sake, thought I could retire in my early 20's too

Mark James wrote:http://metro.co.uk/2014/08/15/outrage-a ... s-4833701/

‘Me and my husband Arthur wanted to go to France this weekend, but now we’re off to Skegness.’

Of course, if four numbers had been worth £50 or so, they'd have had three weeks in Cannes. C'est la vie...